Slate magazine has a roundup of blog reactions to Time magazine naming Vladimir Putin "person of the year." MediaBlog sums it up when it points out that the action "dusts off the long-disused tradition of recognizing the year's biggest bad guy as its top newsmaker. Not since 1979 has a dictator been POY."

The Kremlin stated:

"It's very good news for us, very good news. We treat it as an acknowledgement of the role that was played by President Putin in helping to pull Russia out of the social troubles and economic troubles of the 1990s," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

The Kremlin also thought it was "good news" when Stalin was named man of the year -- twice. One must wonder, however, if Russians are proud that Putin is now in the same club as Adolf Hitler. You have to feel the Kremlin's pain: They can't exactly take credit for an award from "evil America" because then America isn't so evil (Putin specifically denounced what he sees as intentional American anti-Russian propaganda when speaking to Time) and the Kremlin's policy begins to seem insane. Yet, they can't exactly refuse to notice an award from the world's only superpower, either. What to do, what to do.

Blogger BlackFive has this to say:

Michael Goldfarb over at The Weekly Standard catches John McCain with a much more accurate assessment of what lies in Putin's eyes than either W or Time.

Earlier today, the Boston Globe reported earlier comments by McCain on the Russian president and soon to be prime minister that played off Bush's famous remark in 2001 that he'd looked into Putin's eyes and gained "a sense of his soul." McCain sees something different:

“I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.

You have to abso-fu**in-lutely be kidding me, Putin Person of the Year.

No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved by the suppression of ordinary needs, like blinking.

You are a complete Muppet Mr. Stengel. There is another, more accurate description of Putin's eyes, he is a cold-blooded, steely-eyed killer. By nature or nurture isn't really important any more. Putin has presided over the looting of every item of value or industry in Russia, he kills his political opponents and journalists as well you fool. He is a criminal totalitarian who would leave Joe Stalin gasping in admiration at his audacity. He just crowned his successor who promptly named him Prime Minister, really there's a shocker.

It's long been known that the media has a serious bias, but to show this level of cluelessness is amazing. Vladimir Putin? FFS, the only thing I can think of is they are pining for the good old days when we had two superpowers and W couldn't just run around invading places. The idea that Putin has been a net good for Russia is comical unless you believe a country runs best when criminal enterprises run all major industries in a patronage pyramid leadng right back to Vlad the Impaler, the government controls the only media outlets they haven't shut down, and the news comes straight from the Kremlin press office. Oh did I mention they shoot journalists.

I am done, this is too stupid to waste any more time on, what clowns our elite media are.