Time Really Did Not Want Obama To Be Person Of The Year, It Seems

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 — making him the second person to win two consecutive years since Richard Nixon — the award went to … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Who may not sell magazine covers, but is a defensible choice.

But, there’s more. Since announcing the pick, Time has been sending a handful of signals that seem to say that President Obama, who was announced to be a finalist for the award on Monday, really, really was not in contention after all.

First: Time Communications’ Twitter feed. See this tweet (which linked to Time‘s piece on General McChrystal), and conspicuously didn’t mention Obama as a runner-up:

Ok: Twitter is Twitter. Maybe they ran out of space? But then, there’s this 1100+ word press release, which doesn’t even mention Obama’s name.

Finally, Time‘s full list of runners-up and “notable people” puts Obama in #12, behind the likes of Glenn Beck and Jay Leno. What gives?

Here’s what a Time spokesperson had to say to Mediaite about the Person of the Year lists:

“The selection of Person of the Year is not a scientific process. This is a subjective choice by the editors of TIME. We consult with all of our correspondents domestically and internationally. We hear from readers on TIME.com – more than 1.3 million people voted in our online poll this year. Though this poll does NOT select the POY. The senior editors discuss the options and the managing editor makes the final decision.”

Reading between the lines: Time‘s editors went out of their way to stick it to Obama, if only to defy conventional wisdom. When Time conducted a reader poll earlier this month asking who should be Person of the Year, Obama came in second, behind the Iranian protesters. Bernanke came in sixth. Of course, the poll said that “TIME’s editors reserve the right to disagree,” and they availed themselves of that right, going so far as to put Dr. Thomas Frieden (who?) ahead of the president.

Appearing on the Today Show this morning to announce the Person of the Year, Time editor Richard Stengel seemed to acknowledge the expectation that Obama would be the anointed winner by shooting him down at the start. He called Obama “not enough:” “He could be the person of the year every year, but not this year.”

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