People really want to say Obama. They probably think Bush was dumb. It can't be Obama. It could be Osama.
ADDED: And here's the BBC's list of people who defined the decade:
David BeckhamBush isn't even on it.
L/Corp Johnson Beharry
Osama Bin Laden
Tony Blair
George W Bush
Shami Chakrabarti
Simon Cowell
Roger Federer
Norman Foster
Stephen Fry
Bill Gates
Jade Goody
Brian Haw
Rupert Murdoch
Barack Obama
Jamie Oliver
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
David Tennant
Jane Tomlinson
Jimmy Wales
ADDED: Oops! How dare they bamboozle me with alphabetical order!!!
Posts
35 comments:
Politically, I would have to say it was OBL.
Culturally, I would have to think about it, but I would probably venture Steve Jobs.
Since 2000 wasn't part of this decade, don't we have a whole year to go to make this decision?
Politically it was OBL, but I would not necessarily encourage him by noticing his bad behavior, so GWB as his foil.
GW Bush is Obama's Emmanuel Goldstein and Monday mornings shall feature the 2-minute hate where all of HuffPo/Kos/Atrios join in.
David Beckham
L/Corp Johnson Beharry
Osama Bin Laden
Tony Blair
George W Bush...
Bush isn't even on it.
Which Bush were you loking for?
But Bush's name is on that list.
But there's no period after the W. so it doesn't count.
The BBC list is not bad. But why is philanthropist and retired CEO Bill Gates there? Shouldn't Steve Jobs be there instead?
Whether or not George W. Bush is on that list deserves a thoughtful debate. Stop trying to crush it!
They nominated Fry but not Laurie? What better icon for the Aughties than Dr. House?
Personally, I think it's Dean Kamen (2001), since we all ride Segways everywhere we go now that we live in The Future.
I believe Meade was distracting Althouse when she was typing up this blog entry.
GWB is on the list.
I believe Meade was distracting Althouse when she was typing up this blog entry.
GWB is on the list.
Palladian said...
But Bush's name is on that list.
paul a'barge said...
I believe Meade was distracting Althouse when she was typing up this blog entry.
GWB is on the list.
That's the BBC list she's displayed, guys.
PS Meade is always distracting Althouse now that school's out.
Mistletoe, you know.
Cheney's the name I would have added.
vw: flablet -- a petite paunch, or the flap that hangs from older ladies' upper arms.
I don't score very well on cultural literacy.
David Beckham (soccer player)
L/Corp Johnson Beharry (VC?)
Osama Bin Laden (duh), Tony Blair (duh), George W Bush (of course)
Shami Chakrabarti (who?)
Simon Cowell (American Idol guy?)
Roger Federer (tennis player)
Norman Foster (who?)
Stephen Fry (actor)
Bill Gates (philanthropist)
Jade Goody (who?)
Brian Haw (who?)
Rupert Murdoch (media mogul)
Barack Obama (snort. Next decade, maybe.)
Jamie Oliver (who?)
Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google!)
David Tennant (I have a feeling I should know this)
Jane Tomlinson (who?)
Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia)
I don't see how any of the athletes can claim to be influential, nor likely the entertainers either.
Cracking up that David Tennant, aka Doctor Who, the Tenth Doctor, or just Ten, is on the BBC's list.
English people and their popular culture are just adorable sometimes.
Not sure why Ann thinks Bush isn't on the WaPo list -- on their brackets voting page, he's the top pick on the left side.
Scott M: "Since 2000 wasn't part of this decade, don't we have a whole year to go to make this decision?"
It depends on what's meant by "this decade". The first decade of the 21st century runs 2001–10, but the 200xs run 2000–09, just as the Nineties ran 1990–99. Did we ever settle on a name? the Ohs, the Oughties, the Noughties?
Would be interesting to poll by generation.
There are some seriously pathetic options on that BBC list.
Missing: Craig Venter, Francis Collins et al for the Human Genome Project
Jade Goody died of cervical cancer, and was a celebritney.
paul a'barge said...
"I believe Meade was distracting Althouse when she was typing up this blog entry."
Just now got to reading this post and alerted her to the error.
Sorry. I was distracted.
I don't see why Obama is on the BBC's list, although since the Naked Chef made it, the bar is apparently pretty low.
And Roger Federer! Love that.
They should just make it like Time Magazine's Person of the Year:
"The most influential person of the decade is... YOU!"
David Beckham
I will never understand people's fascination with David Beckham. He plays soccer and married a spice girl. Who cares?
Me neither, Shanna. And plus, he's wayyyyyy too pretty. He rivals his wifey that way. I think they're hard to look at somehow.
Well she's hard to look at since those two coconut shells on her chest are very distracting in that train wreck sort of way.
LOL, Joe. That's part of it, yeah.
The BBC list is stupid. It fixates only on Americans and Brits and a few celebrities.
Vladimir Putin? Hu Jintao? Where are they on the list? I guess the same place as Lula of Brazil and the PMs of India, Japan, and where Howard of Australia is --they aren't that important...I guess.
Dave said...
Politically, I would have to say it was OBL.
Binnie is a titular head of a tit-headed terror group numbering at their peak still under 10,000. They killed under 10,000 in the last 10 years. We killed 13,000 in one hour of Bombing Hamburg and declared we couldn't wait to try it against Japan..
Crediting Binnie as being some arch-evil mastermind that should be our only focus while America decays away from a variety of problems and 2-Party corruption was Bush's singularly stupid contribution.
Binnie didn't even conceive of, plan, or implement 9/11. He paid 250,000 of his funds into it and insisted that unwitting Saudis replace Malays and Indonesians as KSM's "muscle". He doesn't serve as the brains of AQ - that is al-Zawahiri and the breakaway Salafis of the Muslim Brotherhood that do that in AQ. The only reason we are hoping to bag him is that Bush hyperinflated his reputation as the Arch-Evildoer Mastermind of All Terror...and we will be Perfectly Safe if ONLY Binnie is "brought to justice".
The idiot Bush never understood that Islam is not the Religion of Peace, the people are not just begging for the Zionist-Crusaders to "liberate them" so they can shed their burquas. The idiot Bush never understood that radical Islam is like ordinary Islam -- there is no "Pope of Islam/radical Islam". There is no CEO of terror. It is ideological, netcentric not hierarchal like a US corporation.
And add Leftists in as co-idiots because they hyperinflated bin Laden being free as the only problem that needed to be dealt with in the run up to the Iraq War, then for the next 6 years as a way of taunting the idiot Bush.
One has to think in long terms and short terms, historically. Short term -- Osama Bin Laden. He's analogous to Hitler defining the 30s and 40s. But you can't name Hitler over FDR (or Churchill) in the long term.
And that would be George W Bush.
vbspurs -
"Short term -- Osama Bin Laden. He's analogous to Hitler defining the 30s and 40s."
Hitler was head of one of the 3 most technologically advanced nations. He assimilated whole nations into the Reich before WWII. He was wildly popular with the masses of the Reich. He conquered whole nations. BY the time he was done, he was responsible for almost as many deaths as the Russian and Jewish communists of the Soviet Union were responsible for. And in striking distance of the Chicommie democides if he had lasted another 3-5 years.
On the other hand, you have one of 218 "terrorist leaders" out there, whose people killed under 7,000 people, max, in 10 years. But Binnie was hyped up by the idiot Bush, then his equally stupid foes as the One Man, the James Bondish "arch Evildoer Behind Everything", that will bring world peace if he was only "brought to justice.".
Wow.
It really is that hard for you to grasp the fact that Bush wasn't influential.
Bush personified self-induced irrelevance.
Steven Fry?
It really is that hard for you to grasp the fact that Bush wasn't influential.
Tell that to Saddam Hussein.
I'll lend you a Ouija board.
George W. Bush - easily. History will tell the tale. 44% already want the "idiot" back, though the so-called "smart" guy has been in less than a year. Hilarious.
That "idiot" kept us safe at night, and fought the bad guys tooth-and-nail, while the "smart" guy makes us nervous just knowing he's awake. Plus you've got the whole Osama/Obama thing. Very unAmerican. Throw in Oprah and, for me, it's really no contest:
Shrub's Da Man.
Post a Comment