[Al Ahram] Time magazine on Wednesday named the recently re-elected US President Barack ObamaI think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
as its person of the year for 2012 -- the second time it has accorded him this honor.
Obama now not only has a reelection as America's first black president and a Nobel peace prize under his belt, but he beat fancied runners-up, including brave Pak girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai, to be enshrined again as Time's dominant personality of the year.
The venerable American news magazine put Obama on its cover, striking a thoughtful, statuesque pose, and said he deserved the accolade as "the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America."
The magazine lauded Obama's campaigning prowess, noting he was the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to win more than 50 percent of the vote in two straight elections and the first president since 1940 to be re-elected despite a jobless rate above 7.5 percent.
Obama beat Republican Willard
MittRomney
...former governor of Massachussetts, the Publican nominee for president in 2012. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals....
soundly in November's election to win a second four year term, despite presiding over a chronic economic slump.
"In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union," said Time, which had named Obama person of the year back in 2008 when he became America's first black president.