- NEW YORK (Reuters)
- Brash, outspoken, indefatigable Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites),
whose composure and compassion rallied New York and the nation after the
Sept. 11 attacks, was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year on Sunday.
"This was about Sept. 11 and about how in the immediate aftermath
of the attacks in those crucial hours, one person took emotional charge
in a way that was extraordinary,'' Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly told
Reuters.
"He led by emotion, not just by words and actions, and in an emotional
year like this one, he deserved to be person of the year,'' Kelly said.
Giuliani, who is in the final days of his eight years as mayor of the United
States' largest city, is Time Magazine's 76th Person of the Year. ``The
person who most affected the news or our lives, for good or for ill, this
year,'' said Time founder Henry Luce when he instituted in 1925 what has
now become a national talking point each year.
President Bush, Time's 75th Person of the Year, made it to the short list
again, along with America's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden.
"This was an active decision about picking Giuliani, and not a decision
about not picking Bush,'' Kelly said.
"Giuliani managed to touch us emotionally in a way that nobody else
did, including the president,'' he said.
As for bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident accused by the United States
of planning the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in
New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, Time said he ``is too small a man
to get the credit for all that has happened in America in the autumn of
2001.''
``He's a moral pipsqueak,'' Kelly said.
He said after that viewing the videotape released last week showing bin
Laden pleased that the Sept. 11 attacks succeeded beyond his expectations,
bin Laden was not a figure with broad enough historical sweep to name
as person of the year.
"We are dealing here with, yes, an evil man, but not a man who deserves
to stride the world stage like a Stalin and a Hitler, or even a Khomeini,''
Kelly said. Soviet leader Josef Stalin was Time's Person of the Year in
1939 and 1942, German dictator Adolph Hitler in 1938, and Iranian leader
Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
Kelly said that Time, which along with other publications has seen declining
advertising revenues, was not concerned about a backlash against the weekly
news magazine if it had chosen bin Laden.
"If we had picked him, we would have argued the case well enough to
show that we didn't try to make him a hero,'' Kelly said.
Instead, he said, they chose Giuliani ``because of his courage on Sept.
11 and afterwards, because a very human man showed superhuman strengths
at a time when the entire country was being tested.''
Already credited with making New York City livable again after years of
crime and neglect, Giuliani has become an international symbol of courage
and leadership since Sept. 11.
From the first moments after two hijacked planes slammed into the World
Trade Center's twin towers, demolishing them, Giuliani has been ubiquitous:
racing to the scene of the destruction and nearly getting buried when
the towers collapsed; calmly giving news conference after news conference;
leading a succession of world leaders to ``ground zero'' to help solidify
the international coalition against bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization;
and attending more than 200 funerals and wakes of those who died in the
attacks.
"For being brave when required and rude when appropriate and tender
without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking
from the pain all around him, Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of the World, is Time's
Person of the Year,'' wrote Time reporter Nancy Gibbs in the issue that
hits newsstands Monday.
Giuliani, who pulled out of the Senate race last year to battle prostate
cancer, finishes his second four-year term as mayor on Dec. 31. He has
said he plans to open a private consulting firm.
Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg will take office on Jan. 1.
Many New Yorkers have said they are uncertain how New York, its economy
wounded by the Sept. 11 attacks, will fare without Giuliani at the helm.
___
-
-
- TIME Dilemma Over Choosing 'Person Of The
Year'
-
- By Seth Sutel
Associated Press - NandoTimes.com
12-23-1
-
-
- NEW YORK (December 22, 2001 8:08 a.m. EST) - There's
no question he has captured newspaper headlines for days on end and impacted
millions of lives. But editors at Time magazine are wondering if Osama
bin Laden should really be named its Person of the Year.
-
- While the decision won't be announced until Sunday morning,
editors at Time had to weigh several considerations in making their selection
this week - including the likelihood of a strong reader backlash.
-
- Choosing bin Laden would undoubtedly anger some and could
even lead to canceled subscriptions.
-
- At the heart of their decision, though, must be the criteria
set out by Time founder Henry Luce: "the person or persons who most
affected the news of our lives, for good or ill, this year."
-
- Time spokeswoman Debra Richman declined to specify this
year's list of candidates, but she did say that the selection would in
"some way" reflect the events of Sept. 11.
-
- In addition to bin Laden, readers of Time's Web site
have nominated candidates including President Bush, New York Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani and the rescue teams of New York.
-
- Time has faced similar quandaries in the past, and has
occasionally selected unpopular leaders, including Hitler and Stalin.
-
- Granted, both of those selections were made before the
full extent of either man's ruthlessness was known to the world at large.
-
- In selecting Hitler for 1938, the year before he invaded
Poland, Time called him the "greatest threatening force that the democratic,
freedom-loving world faces today."
-
- Likewise, Time twice chose Stalin - in 1939 and again
in 1942, while World War II was still raging and Stalin was standing up
to Hitler.
-
- Time also picked Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979,
leading thousands of people to cancel their subscriptions, Richman said.
-
- Two years ago, Time's selection process also generated
controversy when it became known that Hitler was among several candidates
the magazine was considering as Person of the Century.
-
- In the end, Time chose Albert Einstein as Person of the
Century, followed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi.
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