It’s hard to like Time Magazine’s “100 Top Influential People” list one iota.  There is no real rhyme or reason to it, and the fall-back position that it can provoke “debate” is not there either.  It’s not thought-provoking.  And the magazine lost all credibility by naming “You” the “Time Magazine Person of the Year” a few years’ back, just in case it hadn’t lost all credibility by naming Rudy Giuliani such in 2001. 

Over the years they publish one after another.  Oprah Winfrey is the one constant through the years.  The other 99 people change.  Notables get to wax eloquent about this person or that person.  Michael Bloomberg wrote about the women on the “View” — I guess Oprah Winfrey, Mrs. Hasselback (I know her because she’s the wife of the brother of the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks), and Barbara Walters can’t make the list by themselves, and I don’t know what insight Michael Bloomberg has to offer on their significance.  David Letterman had to have made the list once upon a time, now Jay Leno is firmly in place — with a write-up by the man who replaced Conan O’Brien’s slot — er, whatshisname.  And since when does Ashton Kutsher get to write about anyone?  (Given the purple prose he turned in here, I think the answer should be never again.)

The list gets too clever for its own good.  Ted Turner writes about T Boone Pickens.  Immediately followed by T Boone Pickens writing about Ted Turner.  Clever, aren’t they?

Avigdor Lieberman makes the list, Benjamin Netanahyu doesn’t.  I presume that this is where the “thought-provoking” part of the equation comes in, as we contemplate Time’s explicit argument that Lieberman is the most Influential man in Israeli politics, more significant than their prime minister.  We’re also by-passing China’s leader and looking at the presumed next China leader.  A forward-looking list, I suppose.

Except when it’s backward – looking.  It is hard for me to believe that Sarah Palin qualifies in this list.  I have to say, she’s moving and shaking nowhere.  Yet, there she is.  With a write-up from Ann Coulter.  And here’s what Ann Coulter has to say:

Sarah Palin was arguably the most influential person in 2008, but no one notices because she wasn’t influential enough to overcome the deficits of her running mate and win the election.

Until Palin, 45, burst onto the scene, Obama was headed for a Nixon/McGovern landslide. Palin may not have changed the election result, but she killed what otherwise would have been a rout.

John McCain was so preposterous a candidate (at least on a Republican ticket) that Palin was responsible for far more votes than the usual vice-presidential candidate. The biggest red flag proving her popularity with normal Americans is that liberals won’t shut up about her. Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God and country and family — all values liberals pretend to believe in but secretly detest. There’s a reason there’s no “Stop Olympia Snowe before it’s too late!” movement.

The American voter can be hornswoggled occasionally, but we can generally spot a real American, and that’s what Sarah Palin is. She really was a housewife who went into politics because she didn’t like the way her taxes were being spent. She really did take on the old-boy network — the oil companies and her own party — and won. And yes, she really did walk the walk on abortion when she found out she was carrying a Down-syndrome baby.

The combination of Palin’s attractiveness as a candidate and her ability to expose liberals made her a celebrity among Republicans. The only thing I have against her is that she threatens to surpass me in attracting the left’s hatred.

For the most part, I don’t think anyone’s thought much about Ann Coulter in a few years.  We’re getting there, as a country, with Sarah Palin.  Unfortunately Time Magazine just dragged us back over to Palin.  This all is an interesting thought-process, though, and instructive.  Frankly, I much prefer Glen Beck’s write-up on Rush Limbaugh — it’s at least one broadcast entertainer writing up the virtues of a higher rated broadcast entertainer.  But if the Republican Party wants to go the route suggested by Coulter, we’ll find out what a landslide looks like.

Actually, the online voting results have always been a much more interesting guage of some sort of zietgiest.  It’s been a decade since John Linnel of the nerdy little rock band “They Might Be Giants”  came in second in People Magazine’s list of the top Beautiful People, based on online voting.  People’s list qualifications is more frivulous, which makes up for its being just as subjective than Time’s list.  (Though Mitt Romney’s comment might be read a bit sexist.)   The online – voting nature continues to throw up flukes.  The Top 10 there:  1 Moot   …  2 Anwar Ibrahim  …  3 Rick Warren  … 4 Baitullah Mehsud  … 5 Larry Brilliant  … 6 Eric Holder  … 7 Carlos Slim  … 8 Angela Merkel  … 9 Kobe Bryant  … 10 Evo Morales

And, of course, Ron Paul came in ten points ahead of Barack Obama.  Why?  Because this is online voting.

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