The 10 finalists for Time's Person of the Year.

I know. I hate getting suckered into this annual nonsense, but the list presents some interesting options"

Bashar Assad, President of Syria
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
Ted Cruz, Texas Senator
Miley Cyrus, Singer
Pope Francis, Leader of the Catholic Church
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Edward Snowden, N.S.A. Leaker
Edith Windsor, Gay rights activist

It's not going to be Assad. If we were going to do Bad Guy persons of the year, somebody more dramatically bad would have won recently, like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. It would be pathetic to reward Assad with that kind of attention. What about Vladimir Putin? He's not even on the list of finalists, probably because he's already won, back in 2007.

Scratch Hassan Rouhani. He hassan done enough yet.

It's not going to be Barack Obama. He's already won — repeatedly — right? And he was barely there this year, never around when anything was happening. I might accept a jocular nod to The Absence of Barack Obama, because that metaphysical being has been everywhere, involved in everything.

As for Kathleen Sebelius, that's ridiculous. If they were at all thinking of giving it to her, they should have switched to one of those nameless, faceless type of "persons" like The Endangered Earth (1988) or You (2006) or The Whistleblowers (2002) and give it to The Uninsured, The Young Invincibles, The Coders, or The Bugs or something.

It's not going to be Jeff Bezos, because he already won, even if that's hard to remember because it was so last century. 1999.

An entertainer has never won, so there's zero chance that the first one will be Miley Cyrus. Popes have won, but I think it's a bit early to go with another Pope yet, unless the Time folk are itching to play Obama's recently attempted income inequality theme. I think that would be shabby, so I say no.

That leaves Edith Windsor, Ted Cruz, and Edward Snowden. I think Edith Windsor is most likely, because: 1. She gives Time a chance to pick an individual woman, something they've done — embarrassing! — only once before. (It was Corazon C. Aquino, in 1986.) 2. She's a good figurehead for same-sex marriage and gay rights, which were very big this year. 3. It lets Time vary the usual focus on politics, economics, and foreign affairs.

There's Ted. Dear sweet, crazy, everyone-hates-him Ted. If Time is smelling blood and wants to punch around a conservative, the man to pick on is definitely Ted Cruz.

Edward Snowden is an interesting choice, but I don't think it helps Obama to create an occasion for everyone to focus on the NSA problem. Yeah, it's a distraction from healthcare.gov, but does Obama want help in that form? This is a 4th reason to go with Edith Windsor: Gay marriage is a subject that casts a flattering light on Obama.

So we have a winner, don't you think? Edith Windsor.