Die Power Der Veto. We assumed a headline reading, "Hitler planned 'Big Brother' style television to broadcast Nazi propaganda," meant that the Nazi dictator was the John de Mol of his time. Turns out they were just talking about boring, old Orwell-style Big Brotherism: projections of the dictator speaking in public squares. It would have so much more fascinating to think Hitler was way ahead of the reality TV curve, with a plan to put a dozen Aryan out-of-work bartenders inside a house rigged by Leni Riefenstahl with hundreds of cameras, and broadcasting the ensuing bickering and hottübben shenanigans for an enraptured German population. [Summer's Assholes 10 photo-illustration courtesy of Glark.] [Daily Mail]

So here's why the folks at Time reckon Putin deserves the title for 2007.

"At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power," Stengel wrote.

"For that reason, Vladimir Putin is Time's 2007 Person of the Year."

"Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech," he wrote.

"He stands, above all, for stability - stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years."

But c'mon... he deserves it for his work in fashion. CHECK OUT HIS BLOODY SUNGLASSES!

We hear he wears these uber-reflective shades to all high profile meetings, so foreign leaders can never actually see his eyes in order to assess if he's telling fibs or not. Brilliant!

Interestingly, past winners of the Time's Person Of The Year title include Hitler, Stalin, Bono... AND YOU.

Update your resume accordingly.