SHY MAN OF THE YEAR
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James Joyner | Wednesday, January 7, 2004 |
Interesting: The Hill reports that Don Rumsfeld was chosen as Time’s Man of the Year but turned down the honor, saying it should go to the troops instead.
It isn’t often that someone turns down an offer to be Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” especially when that someone is as important as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
But that’s what Rumsfeld did when he learned that Time was planning to honor him in its year-end issue last month.
Rumsfeld told guests at a holiday party that in this year of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military deserved the honor more than he did, which is why Army Sgts. Marquette Whiteside and Ronald Buxton and Spc. Billie Grimes turned up on Timeâs Dec. 29 cover.
Time Managing Editor James Kelly appears to confirm Rumseld’s self-effacing act, if only obliquely, in an editorâs note recounting that when he and several other editors “met with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon in November to talk about the war, [the Defense Secretary] made the pitch, unsolicited by us, that the Person of the Year should be the American soldier. (Or as he put it, the American volunteer.)”
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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I dont know that one can actually "turn down" Time's Man of the Year? Especially given that its not always an accolade. Requiring the recipient to "accept" the award would seem to compromise the editorial integrity.
Perhaps he was thinking about the infamous SI curse that recently afflicted Oregon and a few other college teams.
I would argue that Rumsfeld should be recommended for second prize in Wampum's conservative blog awards (he does post his speeches on the DOD website -- that's blogging, right?). Second, of course, to John Lemon's (now defunct) Barrel of Fish. It was good while it lasted, but it was last at being good.
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