5 Most Likely Reasons Obama Was Chosen as TIME Person of the Year

On Wednesday, TIME announced Barack Obama as its 2012 Person of the Year. According to the editors at TIME, he topped the short list of contenders for “finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union.” In other words, for getting re-elected despite a crappy economy and weak presidential record, and for doing what every president seeks to do in office. The choice is boring, unoriginal, and probably merely a desperate attempt to sell more magazines to Obama supporters hoping to bask in the afterglow of the election.

In an effort to add credibility to its choice, but coming off instead like a desperate sports anchor trying to augment useless statistics, TIME also adds that “Obama is the first Democratic President since FDR to win more than 50% of the vote in consecutive elections and the first President since 1940 to win re-election with an unemployment rate north of 7.5 percent.”

It seems like our friends over at TIME were really scraping the barrel to come up with reasons for selecting Obama … again. So to help them out, I’ve identified 5 more reasons they could use to strengthen their case.

1) It gives him another excuse to take time from work to make more TV appearances.

Now he has a legitimate reason to skip things like UN General Assembly meetings.

2) He can um … sing?

Remember when Obama sang the first 2 lines of an Al Green song at a fundraiser and the world held its breath? I’m sure his supporters were disappointed when he didn’t walk away with the American Idol title that year.

3) Putin was too busy this year.

Putin has also managed to win more than 50% of the vote in consecutive elections and with an unemployment rate far higher than America’s, but let’s face it. Single-handedly trying to remain the dictator of your country under the guise of democracy is time-consuming and fortunately for Obama, Putin did not have his eye on the right prize.

4) One can only win the Nobel Peace Prize once.

TIME has successfully one-upped the Norwegian committee by not only bestowing Obama with the title within the same year as his election (remember, the Nobel committee gave it to Obama the year following his election) but also giving it to him twice!

5) Nate Silver’s model predicted it.

Nate Silver was able to get his hands on the online polling data and plop it into his magical election predictor model. The model said Obama was going to win, so clearly he had to.