Yesterday, when Time Magazine announced that “The Protester” would be 2011′s “Person of the Year,” the choice seemed destined to drive all conservative commentators into a tizzy (perhaps on purpose; get more headlines, sell more copies). In fact, from the instant the announcement was made, many in the Mediaite office couldn’t help but thinking, “Oh, man. Glenn Beck is going to have a field day with this.” Beck, of course, being the guy who predicted at the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement that protesters would soon be shooting rich people in the street. So, we were pretty shocked when Beck explained on his radio show yesterday that he thought it was a perfect choice and that the current movements for social change are the most important parts of-

Oh, I’m just kidding. He hated it.

Wednesday morning, Time magazine named their annual “Person of the Year” live on Today. The choice? The Protester. “From Arab Spring to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow,” the cover reads. Coming in second place was Admiral William H. McRaven, the man who organized the SEAL Team Six raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.

Every December, Time names a “Person of the Year”—the individual or entity that, in the magazine’s estimation, has had the greatest impact on the news either for good or for ill. The process for naming 2010′s recipient kicked off last night, when Time hosted a Person of the Year panel in Manhattan’s Time and Life building.

Warning: viewers of certain cable news programs that have blamed the nation’s recent economic problems on Barney Frank may not want to watch this video for fear that one’s head might explode. MSNBC anchor (and Alan Greenspan spouse) Andrea Mitchell had Congressman Frank on to discuss Time Magazine’s naming of Ben Bernanke as Person of the Year.

After all of the speculation that Barack Obama was going to be Time‘s Person of the Year for the second year in a row, the award went to … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Since announcing the pick, Time has been sending signals that seem to say that President Obama, who was announced to be a finalist for the award on Monday, but was not really in contention after all:

Time takes its ‘Person of the Year’ very seriously, as evidenced by this year’s pick: United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who I suspect is really just a fill in for the U.S. economy, which yes, is absolutely the overriding issue of the year. Had Time taken the whole thing slightly less seriously they probably would have considered picking someone who might actually sell magazines

Time‘s Person of the Year can “Sometimes be surprising, sometimes be controversial, but always interesting,” as Meredith Vieira put it on this morning’s Today Show, where Time managing editor Richard Stengel announced the nominees. The same can be said of the list of finalists. A few were no-brainers (Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke), at least one was puzzling (The Chinese Worker? Really?). And some omissions (i.e. Twitter) may have been the biggest surprises of all: