Obama Is Time's Person of the Year

Barack Obama “hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, and shattered decades of conventional wisdom” on his way to the White House, David Von Drehle writes, and those things alone might make him Time’s person of the year. But already Obama has moved into a new phase, from flashy politician to Mr. Fix It, a man who gets things done.

Obama rattles off an ambitious set of goals for his first two years, confident he can hit them all. “I’ve got a pretty healthy ego,” he says—and amazingly, polls show the public believes he can do it, too. “For having the confidence to sketch that kind of future in this gloomy hour,” Von Drehle writes, “Barack Obama is Time’s Person of the Year.” (More Barack Obama stories.)