November 26, 2017

"Okay, I am just going to right out and say that Time's Man of the Year should have been me."

Lewis Wetzel wrote in the comments to yesterday's post "It can't be that Time colludes with prospective Persons of the Year to see what access it can get out of the process of honoring somebody." Wetzel offers these "bullet points":
-changed the oil -- myself -- on the 2001 Explorer.
-learned how to make a darn good Alfredo sauce.
-read both "Iliad" and "Odyssey."
-hired a guy to do some yard work I've been putting off.
Have you done better? Your immediate response will be to say "Yes!", but then look at the bullet points again, especially the one where I changed the oil in the 2001 Explorer. By myself.
Also in the comments Leslie Graves wrote: "Who would be on the cover of Time this year if the Koch acquisition had already taken place?"

Meade answers that question: "Someone born November 27, 1953 in Norfolk, VA maybe?"

Google tells me Meade is talking about Steve Bannon. That brings up 2 points:

1. Why would the Kochs want to highlight Bannon? The Kochs don't like Bannon publicly, but Bannon was instrumental in getting Trump elected and he's gone now. The Kochs haven't publicly liked Trump either, but as Bannon famously said: “If Pence were to become President for any reason, the government would be run by the Koch brothers—period. He’s been their tool for years... I’m concerned he’d be a President that the Kochs would own" (quoted in "The Danger of President Pence" in The New Yorker).

2. In yesterday's post, I expressed suspicion that Time did have the idea of making Trump Person of the year again this year, but only as a co-winner, and pairing him with someone in a negative way, which is what Time did to Bill Clinton in 1998 (making him co-Person with Kenneth Starr). Now, I'm seeing that the co-winner could very easily have been Steve Bannon.

60 comments:

Unknown said...

"Someone born November 27, 1953 in Norfolk, VA maybe?"

My ignorance. I read that and assumed it must be the birthdate of Jeb.

I probably should have Googled, but at the time was feeling Low Energy.

That Meade is a tricky bastard.

-jj

Meade said...

I'll need to know what Lewis did with his used crankcase oil before I can go along with making him Man of the Year Who Doesn't Pollute Our Lakes and Rivers.

David Begley said...

It should be Hillary. The inevitable winner with the full backing of the Press and one billion dollars lost to a rank amateur.

The historic first woman president was defeated by sexism and to the disappointment of ten year old girls everywhere.

She is the Loser of the Century.

Two pages can be devoted to Russian speculation and four pages to the terribleness of Trump.

Time is as relevant as SNL and Sasha Cohen.

traditionalguy said...

Beware President Bannon. He makes DJT look like Mr Rodgers neighborhood. Not only would we go to several wars under Bannon , we would win them.

narciso said...

Its like the watchman redux when Adrian veldt became president and his apicalypy hoax was revealed seven years later.

robinintn said...

"...what Lewis did with his used crankcase oil..." Undoubtedly, he packaged it up following the EPA's 38 page PDF of instructions, readily available after 4.5 hours of searching the website and 3.2 hours on their helpline, then drove it the 87 miles (one way) to the the nearest convenient, government approved, disposal center. What else would Man of the Year do?
Also, congratulations on the use of "crankcase".

David Baker said...

After President Trump at #1, it seems that in terms of impact, Little Rocket Man Kim Jong-Un would be Time's next choice.

narciso said...

Narratives travel the world:


www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/11/breaking_excop_making_roy_moore_harassment_claim_is_leftist_antimoore_opponent.html

AllenS said...

I take my used oil to the recycling center. You have to ring the outside bell for someone to come to the door, and then they take it. They ask if you need the containers back, if you do, then they dump it right away, and give you the 2-1/2 gallon plastic containers back that the original oil came in.

Ann Althouse said...

Talk about Googling stuff... I Googled "apicalypy." Thought it had something to do with bees. Seemed interesting.

Ann Althouse said...

Bees... and the calypso...

Mike and Sue said...

No, Time would make the co-winner Vladamir Putin. Just to rub Trumps face in it and carry water for the false narrative.

narciso said...

Its automistake, in the tale, evil genius kills three million people or so in order to unify the world, but they have made him a standing for trump, shocker.

Ann Althouse said...

To make an apicalypy it takes a calypso and one bee,
One calypso, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If the calypso is something you cannot do.

Ann Althouse said...

Rhyming a word with the same word. When's that okay in poetry

To make a poem it takes a word and another word,
One word and another word.
And one more word.
One word alone will do,
If words are few.

Ann Althouse said...

What's even the subject here? I forgot.

narciso said...

Mims where the borogroves, I took it as an open thread. Time is a parody of itself that would make luce reconsider his lifework.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I have done better!

1) Learned to use a hammer and dolly set to fix a significant dent in the left rear quarterpanel of the car my 16 year old son had for less than a week before backing into a tree.
2) Didn't refuse my wife sex, even once, the entire year.
3) Finished up a master's in a STEM field from a top-ten school, with a 4.0 ( unless something goes horribly wrong in the next two weeks )
4) Perfected my Beef and Black Bean chili recipe, just in time for my son to go veterinarian.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

But the left hate the Kochs. Big money not flowing to Clinton or corruptocrat coffers pisses them off royally.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

My wife won't let me hire anyone to do yard work. She does much of it, but I have to do some myself. Yesterday I cleaned the eavestroughs (I think Americans say gutters) after my spouse said: shouldn't you get out there and clean them before winter, which according to the forecast is coming tomorrow? So I did. Dangerous work, even though it wasn't wet or slippery up there. Dumped the wet mess off one corner of the roof, onto an out of sight area where we store stuff. Later I had to clean up that mess. Filled most of a yard waste bag.
My point? Behind every potential Man of the Year there is (probably) a good woman.

Gusty Winds said...

Trump is clearly and by far the person of the year for 2017. Good or bad EVERYTHING is about him, or a reaction to him. His presence and Presidency are profound.

Look at how he dominates this blog.

He just screwed Time magazine. For 2017, any other pick is a far distant second in comparison and diminishes the POY. No one will care except the Morning Joe crew.

There’s still a good chance they still pick him, and do a left wing ass kissing hit piece without the access.

Michael K said...

" Not only would we go to several wars under Bannon , we would win them."

I dunno. Bannon is about the USA and fixing the swamp. When has he advocated a war , except against the press and the bureaucracy ?

narciso said...

Bannon is like Thomas cromwell, to king Henry.

wildswan said...

They'll do Hillary Clinton, Al Gore's successor. When Al Gore finished his second term Hillary ran and won. True, in a certain sense, this didn't happen but in a digital sense it could be made to be and it should have been and so it should be. And Time could report on this better world. They imagine most of what they write anyhow so why not completely throw off the objectivity restriction? And an up-and-coming US Senator could win in 2016 becoming the first black President and the first to fly the flags of the world but minus the US flag at his inauguration. "This nation must not stand." And the whole NFL could be taking a knee yet the stadiums would be packed as the pictures would show. And Harvey Weinstein would win every prize in every category at the Academy Awards plus the Nobel prize for literature - in fiction and non-fiction for his autobiography, In Babylon, I. It might have been. It virtually was. It's all been trumped.

Sebastian said...

I nominate the Liberal Harasser: Harvey & Charlie & Bill.

Gusty Winds said...

The Vladimir Putin Boogeyman could be Man of the Year. Not close to President Trump, but he certainly dominated left wing news coverage and the collective insanity of all liberals who couldn’t accept the results of the election. Every Dem on TV pushed the Putin “hacked our election” bullshit. Joe and Mika hopped on even though they know it’s not true...CNN specials...and without the Vlad Boodeyman would we have ever enjoyed the hookers peeing on the hotel bed story?



Mark said...

All these years of hearing about the diabolical Koch brothers and how they are running everything and conservatives are all following their orders -- and I still don't have a clue as to who they are.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The Kochs own the country. It's theirs.

We merely reside in it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

All these years of hearing about the diabolical Koch brothers and how they are running everything and conservatives are all following their orders -- and I still don't have a clue as to who they are.

I guess that just goes to show how little conservatives know about their own party - and who runs it. Not surprising. The Kochs are behind every major legislative coup that the Republicans either try to or wildly succeed in pulling off - from selling off the state and handing it to the oil companies and Wall Street firms to re-segregating North Carolina schools.

tcrosse said...

If the Koch Brothers didn't exist, someone would have to invent them.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Bannon is about the USA and fixing the swamp.

"Fixing" is an interesting way of putting it. I guess Bannon is therefore about "repairing" the swamp - so that it can do swamp-like things in more swamp-like ways.

I don't doubt that Bannon knows a lot about swamps. He looks like he crawled out of one. The guy is about one bottle of Scotch and half a knuckle sandwich away from being choreographed as a dancing cast extra in the Thriller video. Who does his hair, wardrobe and makeup? Fredericks of Tutankhamun? Oh well. A 16,000-year old guy could always look worse.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If the Koch Brothers didn't exist, someone would have to invent them.

I'm sure you'd love to, if you were up to the task. But Charles Dickens beat you to it.

Fabi said...

I missed the comment by Lewis Wetzel. It is a peach.

Fabi said...

"Perfected my Beef and Black Bean chili recipe, just in time for my son to go veterinarian."

Best typo ever?

Yancey Ward said...

Take a guess who wrote this comment in another thread:

"This juxtaposition nonsense... is it just a way of illustrating how much trouble conservatives have of keeping issues separate and why they're so prone to concocting and believing conspiracy theories?"

Meade said...

"2) Didn't refuse my wife sex, even once, the entire year."

Sorry, Iggs, close but that's not good enough for Man of the Year status. She shouldn't have to ask.

Man of Year reads her mind, knows when she wants it, and then brings the ruckus. Every. Time.

Qwinn said...

Compare how much money the Koch's throw around to influence politics, to George Soros.

It's not even close. But if you talk about how Soros drives the Left, well, that's just a crazy conspiracy theory.

tcrosse said...

Were the Koch brothers the source of the $1.2 Billion Hillary blew through in her failed campaign ? Or is there somebody else in this great land of ours who had that kind of scratch ?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What country was Barack Obama born in, Yancey? Does it begin with the letter "K?"

Compare how much money the Koch's throw around to influence politics, to George Soros.

Anyone incapable of seeing the difference between focusing on lobbying within America to make our government more captive to corporations - most of them transnational, and lobbying outside of America to make other governments more open and democratic might as well renounce their American citizenship.

Yancey Ward said...

Toothless, your complete lack of self-awareness isn't surprising.

Kevin said...

You can’t point fingers at Soros.

He’s an icon!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What's this obsession you wingers have about "self-awareness?" Is it a euphemism you have for what people generally call "navel gazing?"

Look to some objective facts, first. Is the left succoring nutcases who stockpile canned goods and ammo and practice for coming apocalypses in the woods?

Was the left concocting conspiracies about the birth origins of presidents?

Tell me what conspiracies the left have been entertaining that are anywhere near as delegitimizing to electoral politics as those chased by the right. Do it with or without, as you call it, "self-awareness." I don't care how aware you are of yourself. I care how aware you are of some basic, relevant facts here.

Qwinn said...

Is Ritmo actually suggesting that Russia! RUSSIA! RUSSIA!!!!! hasn't been delegitimizing to electoral politics, or that anything else in our lifetimes has come close?

Yancey Ward said...

"Is the left succoring nutcases who stockpile canned goods and ammo and practice for coming apocalypses in the woods?"

Wow, simply wow. No, Toothless, the left have their own unique set of conspiracy theories such as the always descending nightmare of fascism, or that 9/11 was a false flag operation, or that Trump is a Russian agent of Putin.

I just found it amusing that in two threads on the same day, you managed to write that conservatives are more prone to believing conspiracy theories, and then wrote that you believe one of your own about how the Kochs run the Republican Party with an iron fist of money. And this even ignores the fact that they were quite steadfast opponents of Trump, who manage to win the vast majority of self-identified Republican voters. You even managed this amazing feat while, in the same damned comment, trying to say that George Soros using his money for political influence is somehow different in scope and kind. You are the perfect example of someone who lacks the intellectual capacity to question ones "truth".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

No, Toothless, the left have their own unique set of conspiracy theories such as the always descending nightmare of fascism,

Show me ten Republican legislators (and/or twenty Democrats) who will not predictably legislate according to what the wealthier donor to their campaign prefers.

or that 9/11 was a false flag operation,

Oh, I know. This is a really big one. Very influential.

As Gore Vidal said, Bush couldn't have pulled off 9/11 if he wanted to. Even if he dreamed it. He was simply too incompetent to do anything like that. But just incompetent enough to let it happen.

...or that Trump is a Russian agent of Putin.

Lol. Check this out:

“He said he didn’t meddle — I asked him again,” Mr. Trump told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One as he flew to Hanoi for more meetings. “You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.”

Mr. Trump did not answer a direct question about whether he believed Mr. Putin’s denials, but his account of the conversation indicated he was far more inclined to accept the Russian president’s assertions than those of his own intelligence agencies, which have concluded that Mr. Putin directed an elaborate effort to interfere in the vote. The C.I.A., the National Security Agency, the F.B.I. and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all determined that Russia meddled in the election.

“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin. “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”


Ok, one out of three.

Find me a single president who has ever promoted this much naively infantile credibility in their response to the proclamations of a hostile foreign power and I'll sell off all of Trump's Russian holdings to a Swiss bank account of your choice.

Republicans believe the biggest conspiracy of all: That even despite how materialistic and easily bought off they are, they seem to not believe that money influences and changes people's actions, or that bribery or corruption are even possible. Even when that is the only rational explanation left for why their politicians have committed to certain actions.

For as much as you people love money, you certainly seem to think it doesn't have any influence over people's actions, priorities or beliefs. How strange. Talk about a lack of "self-awareness." A complete lack!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh, and Yancey! Yancey!

As far as 9/11 conspiracies go, I can't think of anyone more influential in America peddling them than a certain right-wing crank named Alex Jones. A guy whom Trump thanked, upon winning - adding, "Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down"

Jones shared the love, telling Trump that "my audience, 90% of them, they support you.
"


You people aren't even competent enough to remember who's pushing for what. Amazing!

Martin said...

If co-winners they would match Trump and Putin.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

More on Trump's close relationship with specialty conspiracy blogger and renown 9/11 "truther" Alex Jones -

The Republican billionaire has previously called Jones a “nice guy” and appeared on his Infowars show in December 2015. “Your reputation is amazing,” Mr Trump said. “I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed, I hope. And I think we’ll be speaking a lot.”

Amazing reputation! He'll be "impressed!"

But the left are the 9/11 truthers! LOL!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

OH yeah. 9/11 was an "inside job" and Sandy Hook was faked.

National treasure and people's voice to the ear of President Trump, Alex Jones everybody!

Yeay!

Become aware of yourself.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Right-wing voice of the reality-based, non-conspiracy believing community!

LOL!

I'm sure you'll have a good explanation on that one very soon, right Yancey Ward?

Right!

John henry said...

Or how little folks like Squeamish Revolutionary Know about the Koch Brothers.

They mainly support liberal causes, not conservative ones.

Cato, Mercatus Center, reason institute to name a few of the better known.

They would be insulted to be called "conservative". As would I.

They, like me, are liberals thougj, if you really must, we could live with "classical liberal"

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

"classical liberal"

Right. The "liberalism" that couldn't figure out how to account for the industrial revolution.

Leslie Graves said...

I'd pick:

* The youngest nominee to the federal bench under Trump, since that person (whoever it is...I don't know) signifies an important part of the Trump federal judge nomination strategy

* The first four women who spoke out publicly about Weinstein, since they kicked off the Rosa Parks moment we are in

* Betsy DeVos. She represents what the Trump administration is actually doing, while Trump is tweeting and confusing the media

* The (mythical?) Facebook user who inadvertently read a Facebook post placed by Russian bots and (mythically?) inadvertently voted for Trump (??) as a result


Jim at said...

Tell me what conspiracies the left have been entertaining that are anywhere near as delegitimizing to electoral politics as those chased by the right.

Snort.

I wouldn't call the 9/11 Truther Movement entertaining, but they certainly beat anything put forward by the right.

But they're yours. Own it.

Michael K said...

Yancey, feeding trolls is a waste of time.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Snort.

Hey, Jim!

While you're busy snorting like a pig, go check out the five posts on the biggest 9/11 Truther of all, right-wing professional conspiracist Alex Jones', immense "contribution" to this lovely movement of yours and how close he is to your amateur president Trump. But nice way to prove how difficult it is for a right-winger like you to take note of reality, let alone to read everything here posted on it that Yancey Ward has no rebuttal for whatsoever.

You people will deny the hand on the end of your fuckin arm. Just about as in-touch with reality as a cartoon.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yancey, feeding trolls is a waste of time.

Don't disrespect her. She was doing a fine, admirable job trying to explain how the biggest 9/11 truth-movement propagandist and believer of all time by far, Alex Jones, was a creation and exponent of the left.

Stop trying to confound her wonderful case.

Bilwick said...

The Toothless State-fellator claims that the Koch brothers (you know, those evil libertarian billionaires who want to LEAVE YOU ALONE!!!) own the country. Great news! Those of us who actually value freedom can, I trust, look forward to the abolition of the Income Tax, repeal of all gun laws,and a complete rollback of the Welfare

Bilwick said...

(continued) State. Thank you, Koch brothers!

Kyzer SoSay said...

Apparently TTR thinks that Alex Jones is the biggest 9/11 truther. How sad. The biggest 9/11 truther is Michael Moore.

Which side is he on again?