Barack Obama Named TIME’s ‘Person Of The Year’ For Second Time In Four Years
For the second time in four years, President Barack Obama has been named TIME’s Person of the Year.
TIME named President Obama TIME’s Person of the Year for 2012 due to his historic reelection, which symbolized the direction in which the citizens of the United States want the country to go.
“He’s basically the beneficiary and the author of a kind of new America – a new demographic, a new cultural America that he is now the symbol of,” TIME editor Rick Stengel said as he announced the choice on the Today show on Wednesday.
“He won reelection despite a higher unemployment rate than anybody’s had to face in basically 70 years. He’s the first Democrat to actually win two consecutive terms with over 50 per cent of the vote. That’s something we haven’t seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
Obama was named as Person of the Year in 2008, with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and “The Protester” filling the years in between.
Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education, was named as runner up.
“Since October her message has been heard around the world, from cramped classrooms where girls scratch out lessons in the dirt to the halls of the U.N. and national governments and NGOs, where legions of activists argue ever more vehemently that the key to raising living standards throughout the developing world is the empowerment of women and girls,” TIME wrote in a profile.
Other finalists included Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and Higgs boson physicist Fabiola Gianotti.
The latest edition of the magazine features Obama on the cover, and an editorial explains why he was the choice for TIME’s Person of the Year.
“We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Barack Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America,” the editors wrote.
“In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union.”
Jordan Shepherd | Elite.
