To no suprise to most of us, Barack Obama has been named Time’s Person of the Year. Unlike some others *ahem* Bush *ahem* Obama is deserving of this title for the many positive things he has brought to the table and inspired in many of us. At the time of this post well over 70% of those who voted in the poll on Time.com agree. It is a little sad to note that the majority of voters in Alaska and Idaho do not agree. I think it’s a fair assumption that they are greater fans of Sarah Palin, who is close to being at the top of the list.

While I feel Obama is right for this recognition, I’m not sure I can say the same for several of the runners-up, who include Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who has helped make a cluster fuck out of the economic crisis, Sarah Palin who is responsible for much of the huge partisan divide and made a mockery of her nomination for the Office of the Vice President, Zhang Yimou who was only in the news for a few weeks associated with the Olympics and the computer generated fireworks, Lehman Bros CEO Richard Fuld, Jr. whose multi million dollar homes were bought and paid for by the financial crisis and who deserved the punch in the face, Robert Mugabe who buys his wife expensive shoes while starving his country’s citizens and is responsible for the 80% unemployment rate in Zimbabwe, and, of course, George W. Bush. Has Bush even been around in the past year? I know he’s pretty much phoning it in at this point, but does Time really need to include the current President? I really don’t like the infamous runners-up who have done nothing more than ruin whatever they touch and yet somehow profit off of others’ losses.

At least some of the other runners-up do include such positive influences as Michael Phelps who won a record eight gold medals, Dara Torres who is the Olympic swimmer that is also a 41 year old mother, Craig Venter who is a geneticist that wrote a new organism’s genome from scratch, Stephanie Meyer who is the next author (Twilight) experiencing great popularity after J.K. Rowling, and Tina Fey who brought back SNL from the grave (during the election) for her impersonation of Sarah Palin on top of having her own hit show, a hit movie and a huge book deal.