Time Names George W. Bush Person of the Year 2000
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time magazine said Sunday it had selected President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) as its Person of the Year 2000, describing him as a symbol of a ``conflicted'' U.S. electorate who may yet bridge the nation's differences with his affable ``big picture'' approach to problems.
Time Managing Editor Walter Isaacson wrote in a letter to the magazine's readers that the time he had spent with both the Republican Bush and his defeated Democratic rival, Al Gore (news - web sites), had underscored just how different the two men are.
In contrast to the detail-hungry Gore, Isaacson wrote, ``Bush is impatient with distracting details, just as he is with the cedar undergrowth on his ranch, which he clears with a vengeance because it distracts his view of the big picture.''
Time has often, but not always, chosen a president-elect as its Person of the Year -- a widely-watched selection that typically generates year-end debate in the media.
Neither John F. Kennedy nor Richard M. Nixon were named in the years they won. It was the historic showdown in Florida that sealed the choice, and the magazine's editors decided before last week's Supreme Court ruling gave the state to Bush that whoever prevailed would get the nod.
``For 72 years,'' Isaacson wrote, ``that distinction has gone to the person who, for better or worse, most affected the news and personified what was important about the year.''
``... By his narrow and contested victory, he became a symbol of an electorate that was not (as some have contended) deeply ideologically divided but was instead rather conflicted and ambivalent as it split the difference between the two parties,'' the Time editor wrote.
Isaacson, who interviewed the Texas governor and then toured his isolated ranch on the Saturday the Supreme Court stayed the Florida recount, said ``... Bush becomes tentative or disengaged when a conversation turns too analytic.''
``During our hours at the ranch, while his lead was slipping in the hand counts, he neither turned on the news nor checked with his aides,'' Isaacson wrote. ``... but riding around the ranch, he displayed his personable ability to tell stories that gave insight into someone's character, listen, pick up emotional cues and establish casual bonds.
``... Perhaps the close split in this election and the new Congress might, ironically, make it easier for someone like Bush to succeed,'' he concluded. ``We are about to find out, for better or for worse, whether his personable approach will help us clear away the rancorous undergrowth and create that wider expanse of common ground he claims to envision.''
In his cover story on Bush, Time writer John Dickerson wrote that while most politicians try to impress people with their intelligence, ``Bush does the opposite. He likes to be underestimated, likes to pretend you're telling him something he didn't already know.
``And he likes to be seen as unflappable,'' wrote Dickerson, who also spent hours with Bush. ``No problem is too tough that it can't be licked with a little of the common sense that rules on his 1,600 acre property in Crawford, Texas.
``If that means people think he's not quite as clever as all those city folks he has working for him, all the better.''
-- Anonymous, December 17, 2000