Putin Time's Person of the Year

A Boy Scout he's not, but steely-faced 'Pooty-Poot' has guided Russia back to prominence
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 19, 2007 8:27 AM CST
Putin Time's Person of the Year
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, unseen, during a news conference in Moscow's Kremlin on Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007. Putin is not a Boy Scout, Time says, but he has been the dominant leadership force of 2007 -- and will continue to guide Russia long after...   (Associated Press)

Don't be fooled by the 5' 6" frame of the man George W. Bush termed "Pooty-Poot": Russian President Vladmir Putin is Time's Person of the Year for having "brought Russia back to the table of world power." The quiet man behind the steely stare snuck up to best 2007 heavyweights Al Gore and JK Rowling at perhaps their peak.

Russia is and always will be a world force, Time reasons, and Putin's no-holds-barred leadership has imposed "stability on a nation that has rarely known it." While a bastion of democracy he's not, Putin is, and will continue to be, the guiding hand reminding the West that "Russia is central to our world—and the new world that is being born." (More Vladimir Putin stories.)

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