Vladimir Putin is Time Magazine's "Man of the Year"
Filed under: Russia
Time Magazine, 1938
Man of the Year: Adolf Hitler
The magazine reported: "What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to Germany in less than six years was applauded wildly and ecstatically by most Germans. He lifted the nation from post-War defeatism. Under the swastika Germany was unified. His was no ordinary dictatorship, but rather one of great energy and magnificent planning. The 'socialist' part of National Socialism might be scoffed at by hard-&-fast Marxists, but the Nazi movement nevertheless had a mass basis. The 1,500 miles of magnificent highways built, schemes for cheap cars and simple workers' benefits, grandiose plans for rebuilding German cities made Germans burst with pride. Germans might eat many substitute foods or wear ersatz clothes but they did eat."
Time Magazine, 2007
Man of the Year: Vladmir Putin
The magazine reported: "When this intense and brooding KGB agent took over as President of Russia in 2000, he found a country on the verge of becoming a failed state. With dauntless persistence, a sharp vision of what Russia should become and a sense that he embodied the spirit of Mother Russia, Putin has put his country back on the map. And he intends to redraw it himself. Though he will step down as Russia's President in March, he will continue to lead his country as its Prime Minister and attempt to transform it into a new kind of nation, beholden to neither East nor West."
Clearly establishing its journalistic brilliance, Time's correspondent interviewed Putin and began by stating: "The first question is something I'm curious about both as a man and as a journalist. You were born in 1946. I was born in 1948. We're of the same generation." Putin responded: "I could not have been born in 1946, because my father was wounded in the war, my mother survived the Leningrad blockade. They had lost two children and could not think of starting to have children straight away. That's why I was born a little later, in 1952." Readers may remember that a short while ago I exposed the nature of Time's coverage of Russia in detail on Pajamas Media. Pajamas editor Michael Weiss has a brilliant piece on the blog right now exposing the ridiculous fraud that underlies the suggestion that Putin's actual policies have altered Russia's standard of living or position in the world.
They don't even know how old he is? Yup, they don't even know as much as that.
As bad as they are, though, the Kremlin is far worse. Putin responded to Time's invitation to dispel American misconceptions about Russia by stating:
I don't believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe [that Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have the dirt washed out of their beards and hair.
Yet, Putin's press secretary responded to Time's Putin designation by stating: "It's very good news for us, very good news. We treat it as an acknowledgment of the role that was played by President Putin in helping to pull Russia out of the social troubles and economic troubles of the 1990s."
So which is it? If the designation by one of America's highest-circulating magazines is praise, then how dare Putin claim America is propagandizing against him? And if it is condemnation, then how dare the Kremlin lie about it so brazenly?
Oh and, by the way, just for the record Mr. Putin: Your country has the fifth highest murder rate in the world and the second highest rate for murder of journalists. Those are facts nobody can deny. So, in fact, your country actually is "a little bit savage." Some people might even say a lot.
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