The headline tells me all I need to know...

about both Vlad the Poisonous, and TIME, the Western Commie Pulp Rag,

"Choosing Order Before Freedom"

Yeah, I'm sure that's right. Seriously, stumping for that man has to be considered a new low. Their fawning over him is just nausiating:

When this intense and brooding KGB agent took over as President of Russia in 2000, he found a country on the verge of becoming a failed state. With dauntless persistence, a sharp vision of what Russia should become and a sense that he embodied the spirit of Mother Russia, Putin has put his country back on the map. And he intends to redraw it himself. Though he will step down as Russia's President in March, he will continue to lead his country as its Prime Minister and attempt to transform it into a new kind of nation, beholden to neither East nor West.

Of course, they go on to admit that their POTY award isn't necessarily about doing something that's actually good for the world, but about rank power, or, as they put it leadership,

TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership

This is all pretty sick shit, if one stops to think about any of it. Normally, this kind of thing is reported nightly on the idiot box, and loosely called news, when dictatorial Heads-of-State aren't leading by example, but instead by fear.

Maybe TIME should rethink some of the criteria for this yearly anti-award, and give it to someone who's done something other than choose "Order before Freedom."