Blessed are those who wait. Every year it happens. As the
calendar winds down, there are always some who feels an urgent need
to race out ahead of the pack in giving out end of the year awards.
Thus Sports Illustrated named its Sportsmen of the Year
for 2004 sometime around Thanksgiving. And such sportsmen! The
lowly Boston Red Sox, of all critters, apparently because they once
again finished second in the American League’s Eastern Division,
behind the almighty New York Yankees. The injustice of a team
winning baseball’s championship when it should not have even been
eligible to play in the World Series we’ll leave to future
generations to rectify. The Bambino’s Curse still has some spittle
left in it, you’ll see.
Not long after SI jumped the gun, Time
ragazine followed suit by announcing George W. Bush as its Person
of the Year. It did so with great reluctance, deep disappointment,
profound indignation, and pained personal outrage — the exact
sentiments with which readers and mature Americans reacted to news
of the announcement. To add insult to its injured journalistic
standards, Time’s premature call left it unprepared to
settle on someone more to its liking. For instance, Ukraine’s
anti-victor Viktor Yanukovych, or his handler Vladimir Putin, who
if he were a bigger man could easily be mistaken for a rat. Indeed,
word at the Bolshoi is that Putin got his start playing
Tchaikovsky’s Rat King in The Nutcracker.
Final proof that patience is its own reward comes to us in the
person of U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland. Back when
Time and SI were playing the big shot Mr. Egeland
was not even a zero in a zero-sum game. But given the right
opportunity he emerged as the world’s conscience and a leading
candidate for our big prize. With one deft observation — Bush
America is “stingy” — he captured what everyone knew. Just like
that he became the new Mandela, the new Cronkite, the new Bill
Moyers. He comes well-qualified. According to an anonymous tipster,
Egeland not only holds a Magister Artrium in Political Science from
the University of Oslo. But “he has been a Fulbright Scholar at the
University of California, Berkeley.” And “a fellow at the
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and the Truman
Institute for the Advancement for Peace, Jerusalem,” which is in
Palestine, in case you were wondering how to contextualize that bit
of news.
Perhaps too late for this year, but we have not seen the end of
recriminations in the wake of the tragedy in the Asian
subcontinent. It was reprehensible enough that President Bush did
not display appropriate public sorrow in response. (Was this any
way for a Time’s persona to show gratitude?) But what
about other aspects of U.S. policy that could be behind the
earthquake that set off destructive tsunamis? The New York
Times informs us that the past year was one of “unusual
seismic ferocity.” Clearly, something is causing all those cracks
in the earth’s tectonic plates. We need to look no further than our
kitchens, dining rooms, and restaurants to divine where the problem
lies. We are the heaviest nation in the history of the world. How
much extra weight can the earth be expected to bear?
America is going to have to trim its roster. In our many years
of civic action, Enemy Central has gone beyond the call of duty to
accelerate the process. But the more worthies we eliminate, the
more they multiply. We’ll ponder the paradox later. Time is running
short. Midnight on Times Square beckons. Many a menace has already
been neutralized. We think. Anyone, for instance, seen John F.
Kerry lately? Check your duck blind. Or the forest where deer once
rambled. He could be in there, crawling on all fours, in
camouflage, ready to fire his big bertha at anything still
twitching. He obviously expects to windsurf again in 2008. We shall
see.
We could go on in this vein, but let’s not beat around the
outback any more than we need to. Hunter Kerry didn’t set the tone
this past year. He was merely the tool of a much weightier cause,
one that attempted to reduce American politics to slobs
shenanigans. And we know who the chief heavy was. Sorry, Michael
Moore, but you’ve left us no alternative. Think of your EOY prize
in progressive terms. Our good earth will breathe easier if you
float away.
