Whacky ‘TIME’ Declares Thunberg Person of the Year [OPINION]

There were a lot of interesting folks who could have been named TIME magazine's Person of the Year but were not. Instead, TIME chose 16-year-old Greta Thunberg.

I suppose if you are a champion of the global warming/climate change hoax, Thunberg seems a natural selection. I mean, who better than a precocious little snotty kid from Sweden who lectures and talks down to adults to be the face of the non-issue of the millennium?

TIME editor Edward Felsenthal announced the magazine's selection of Greta Thunberg on The Today Show this morning.

"She was a solo protester with a hand-painted sign a few months ago," he said. "She's taken this issue from backstage to center."

Greta Thunberg was cute for about 15 minutes. She burst onto the scene and was treated with all of the respect and adoration you might expect a 16-year-old kid to get from a pandering pile of political types who watched as she stole their thunder. The love affair was brief, as we all know that kids should be seen and not heard. Unless, of course, they can gin up votes.

The honeymoon was short for Greta as those 15 minutes do fly by rather quickly. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, sick of Thunberg's rhetoric, recently called out the press for giving her a platform,

"Greta has said that the Indians died because they were defending the Amazon. It's amazing that the press gives space to this kind of pirralha," Bolsonaro said. For those who don't speak Portuguese, pirralha means "brat." I guess President Bolsonaro is no fan of the "fake news" media, either.

Almost every poll ranks climate change just slightly ahead of being hit by an asteroid on the list of things most people lose sleep over. Greta Thunberg's time in the sun came and went, yet TIME is trying to extend her shelf life.

TIME should have named the Hong Kong protestors who are fighting and dying for their basic rights as its People of the Year, but instead, they chose Thunberg.

By the way, the revolutionaries who wave American flags and sing the American national anthem were considered for the honor but were rejected. Go figure.

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.