After some thought, and more than a few conversations with colleagues who expected me to be outraged or scandalized, I continue to unreservedly believe that TIME Magazine’s selection of Vladimir Putin as person of the year is truly a great thing. I congratulate the magazine’s editors on the selection. The exact wording is that “TIME’s Person of the Year 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” – and, for better or worse, I think it is a very positive thing that one of America’s major media outlets has decided that Russia is again playing a crucial role in the world and should be #1 on everyone’s agenda. Far too much of what Putin has been doing has gone under the radar screen, and TIME has provided a major public service to shine the light of Western media attention on Putin’s accumulation and wielding of power.