The Objectivism Online Meta-Blog

Does getting yourself elected the president of the most important country in the world during a wave of world-wide economic upheavals and in an era of myriad international political crises make you the “Person of the Year”–considering in addition that you are the first black president in that same country, which has an otherwise incomparably glorious history of individual rights, but whose story is nonetheless stained by black slavery and racism–and considering that you promote a conciliatory policy with fundamentalist Islamic leaders whose essential philosophy is wholly antithetical to everything America stands for–and that you are a dedicated socialist who will take the freest country in the world and push it further towards being just one more “people’s state”–and finally, that your election signals that modern-day Americans believe that all the above is change they can believe in?

Yes. It does.

Barack Obama is Powell History’s “Person of the Year” for 2008.

If you object to this choice on moral or political grounds, I refer you to my series on the 2007 Person of the Year.

History is what matters, not how what matters makes you feel. ‘Nuff said.

Well…just one more thing…I do not wish for any of my readers to interpret this brief dismissive post as a sign that I would have preferred America to choose John McCain for President.  For the record, I had no preference whatsoever in the matter.  If you would like to know why, I refer you to Leonard Peikoff’s podcast comments here.

The fact that America has declined from the republic it once was to a democracy faced with the McBama non-alternative is the most depressing thing I can think of.  I bid goodbye and good riddance to 2008.