Person for the year (America and World): General David Petraeus.

Again, there should be NO surprise who our Person for the year outside of Kentucky ought to be. We are sure you'll conclude with us that the person is the Commander of our multinational forces in Iraq -- the one and only General David Petraeus.

When Americans were getting restless about the war in Iraq, President Bush introduced the General to us as our savior in Iraq. Heck the way Republicans depended on him and talked about him, we thought he was the Messiah. Maybe, in a sense, he was the Iraq military messiah.

And the way Democrats talked about him, you thought he was the anti-christ himself. Heck, he so spooked Democrats to the extent that Moveon.org pre-emptively "moved on" him, by taking a full page ad at the New York Times -- subsidized by the paper, of course -- to accuse him of "Betray[ing] us".

By the time, it was all said and done, even Representative John Murtha, President Bush's arch-rival on Iraq, had to admit that the "surge" led by the General "was working". Even Democrats in Congress had to agree, giving Bush the money he needed to conduct the Iraq war further, without them suggesting a date for our troops to pull out of Iraq.

The deafening silence you hear is the drumbeat on Iraq dying down considerably. So no matter how one "slices it", one CANNOT escape the fact that NO one deserves the honor of this blog's Person for the Year more than General David Petraeus, so we SALUTE him with the recognition.