For the second time, President Barack Obama has been chosen as the TIME magazine ‘Person of the Year,’ beating out eight other contenders on the short list of finalists.
Obama was selected as the winner by the magazine editors, who yearly choose “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.”
As runners-up, TIME named, in order, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and Higgs Boson particle discoverer Fabiola Gianotti.
The last time Obama held this spot — in 2008 — he was just the president-elect, having beaten Sen. John McCain a month earlier. But this time, the President’s selection is not based on some idealistic feeling of hope and change, but on the policies and positions he backed during his first term.
“America debated and decided this year: history would not record Obama’s presidency as a fluke,” TIME journalist Michael Scherer wrote in his article on the selection.
No, Obama’s presidency isn’t a fluke; his reelection proves that. But that doesn’t negate the fact that in many ways, his presidency has also been a failure.
