Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[5] However Time magazine points out those such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, and Joseph Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and Ben Bernanke in 2009 have also been granted the title.
However, I think that it is highly unfair to compare these men to Ben Bernanke. Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeini all knew what they were doing, and were all more popular when they made the cover of Time.
