After winning re-election, President George Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year. The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes - and ours - on his faith in the power of leadership." Time's 2004 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, includes an Oval Office interview with Bush, an interview with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and a profile of Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove. In an interview with the magazine, Bush attributed his victory over Democratic candidate John Kerry to his foreign policy and the wars he began in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The election was about the use of American influence," Bush said. After a grueling campaign, Bush remains a polarizing figure in America and around the world, and that's part of the reason the magazine selected him, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly. "Many, many Americans deeply wish he had not won," Jim Kelly said in a telephone interview. "And yet he did." In the Time article, Bush said he relishes that some people dislike him. "I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," Bush said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are." Bush joins six other presidents who have twice been named the magazine's Person of the Year: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (first as a general), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) and Bill Clinton (news - web sites). Franklin Roosevelt holds the record with three nods from the editors.
