Time Picks Domestic, Foreign Bush as 1990 ‘Men of the Year’

Time magazine named “The Two George Bushes” as its annual Man of the Year, noting in its announcement Saturday that he “seemed almost to be two presidents.”

On foreign policy, Bush “was a study in resoluteness and mastery” while domestically he was “just as strongly marked by wavering and confusion,” the magazine said in the cover story of its Jan. 7 issue, due on newsstands Monday.

The cover carried the headline “Men of the Year” rather than Man of the Year, and a Janus-like portrait made up of two photographs of the President was captioned “The Two George Bushes.”

The two faces of Bush, Time said, “were not just different but also had few features in common.”

Bush narrowly defeated Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for the Man of the Year title, which recognizes the person “who, for better or worse, has had the most impact on the year’s events.”

“Why didn’t we pick Saddam? The answer in the end really is that invading a little country is not enough to make you man of the year,” said Time Managing Editor Henry Muller.

The magazine praised Bush for “midwifing” a new world order that has had a decidedly favorable impact on the course of events. In painfully sharp contrast, Bush has affected domestic news decidedly for the worse, it said.

“What could have been more baffling, at times ludicrous, than Bush’s performance on taxes?” it asked. “His domestic policy, to the extent he has one, has been to leave things alone until he could no longer avoid taking action.”