GINGRICH: MAN OF THE YEAR

House Speaker Newt Gingrich is Time magazine's man of the year. In years gone by, when the roster of slick, mass-circulation magazines pretty much began and ended with Time, Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, The Readers Digest and Colliers, this designation perhaps carried more moment than it does in today's carved-up magazine market of Runner's World, PC User and The Wine Spectator. Still, the pick is an attempt to do what no other national print magazine does: to designate the year's dominant personality.

The choice of Gingrich is an apt one, even if the cover photo, which makes him look like Freddy Krueger's twin brother, isn't. Gingrich has indeed dominated the American political scene over the last year as has no congressional figure of recent memory. A controversial and even fascinating figure, he is boldly attempting a sharp break with long-established ways of doing business within the Beltway. While the last chapter in that effort is far from written, there can be no doubt of his current dominance of Congress, which the Founders instructed us would always, in peacetime, be the most powerful branch of government.