It comes as no surprise that TIME Magazine named Vladimir Putin their very own “Person of the Year.” After all, they can’t even distinguish between male and female, much less good and evil. The only remaining question is what did Putin do to edge out Ahmadinejad and Chavez? The answer probably has merely to do with their publicity schedules. “TIME’s Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest.” Thanks for clearing that up, but methinks they doth protest too much. Perhaps TIME wouldn’t argue that getting their “Of the Year” cover is an accolade, but in the rest of the world, we view it as such, making their choice an abomination.

The fact that TIME applauds all the anti-freedom, anti-market, communistic tendencies of Putin lends to the argument that they indeed mean for their choice to resonate as approbation. In the byline on their website, they claim that his final year as Russian President has been his most successful yet. “At home, he secured his political future.” Really? That’s the great thing that he did to win the award? Securing the future of the country, or of some semblance of peace in the Middle East, those things did not play over at TIME. In an article, “Why We Chose Putin” they write, “At significant cost to the principles that free nations prize, he’s brought Russia roaring back to the table of world power.” I thought world power was bad – isn’t that what Bush keeps getting wrong? Boy, if TIME were playing on the other team, the ACLU would have a field day with this. But TIME and Putin, the new Russian “tsar”, are on the side of communism, clearly, so everything that Putin does to remove civil liberties from his fellow countrymen, in the guise of security, is lauded by TIME as being heroic. Don’t try this at home, George Bush.

TIME comforts the reader by reassuring us, “…this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes’ promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy.” Yes, who wants freedom, when you can have political and economic persecution and censorship? “His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin’s hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule.” That, for sure, is the new utopia, which somehow we are missing out on over here in our misguided free country. Tell that to the 10 men who married Eunice Lopez in exchange for legal immigration status here. Tell that to the countless Mexicans crossing our southern border, at their own peril. Why aren’t they just going to Venezuela, Mr. TIME editors? The good news is that Putin has read the bible, which he “keeps on his state plane”. If I had a plane… I still wouldn’t use it to store my bible, but I’m a common-sense kind of gal.

Which for me makes the TIME article read like a comedy sketch. I’m hoping the rest of America sees it as such, but that’s admittedly naďve.

The year after Ronald Reagan died, The Oscars presented, as usual, a review of all the industry greats that had died that year. Reagan was allotted a few seconds, no more than most of the other honorees. Eight times this great man was the elected president of our Screen Actors Guild, prior to becoming champion of the free and the brave. His record is unscathed by any scandal. His contribution cannot be ignored, and yet they succeeded in doing so. Reagan’s own guild couldn’t bear to accord him the accolades he deserved, so why should TIME Magazine? Instead, TIME chose the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, in both 1988 and 1990. This is the man who, as charming as he might have been, really is best known for steering the runaway train that Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan had rendered of the Soviet Union’s economy.

I know the editors at TIME have also seriously considered Osama Bin Laden, and I’m certain that their reasoning includes the fact that they had previously chosen Hitler once and Stalin twice. But as my mother always said, two wrongs don’t make a right. And in this case, they don’t even make a reasonable leftist.

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