Time Magazine has announced the names of the people on their shortlist for this year’s Time “Person of the Year.”

They name people for good and sometimes bad reasons, but the idea is supposed to be the significance of what that person has done.

But when you peruse the shortlist that The Hill has, for some of the people, you have to wonder about what Time was thinking.

.@TIME releases its 2022 Person of the Year shortlist pic.twitter.com/8rTCTIJUCY

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) December 5, 2022

I’ll start with the ridiculous — “we need to fill out the list” — inclusions.

If you don’t know what the person has done to even be considered for the list, that person probably hasn’t had a lot of effects yet. McKenzie Scott is on the list because she’s donated some of the billions that she got from her divorce from Jeff Bezos to various organizations. That doesn’t seem like much of a criterion or they were desperate to fill out the list.

Then there was the one that made me laugh out loud — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. What has she done apart from lying about inflation and the recession? They’ve got to be kidding with that one. In describing why she might be on the list, The Hill says, “Yellen worked this year to reassure Americans about the economy amid high inflation and soaring gas prices.” Reassure? Is that the new word for trying to deceive the American public?

Now, I’ll have to admit my personal favorite for most ridiculous that also made me laugh out loud has to be Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), soon-to-be the ex-representative from Wyoming. This is the obligatory nod to the Jan. 6 Committee. But what has the Committee achieved, even from their Democratic perspective? It’s been largely ignored by America. Plus, adding her to the list when her constituents rejected her in a landslide (by almost 40 points) and she’s about to become irrelevant because of it, makes it an especially bad pick. Choosing someone who imploded their career over their Trump hatred seems a poor choice. But it’s all getting in an anti-Trump bit here and they try to suggest future significance in that she might run for president. Who would vote for her?

Time also named “Gun Safety Advocates” who don’t seem to have done anything more this year than last year. The same with Xi Jinping. If you’re going to name anything about the situation in China, I’d name the protesters, who are the real difference there, and who are doing what they can to stand up to Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policies.

Time also named the protesters in Iran. That’s a good pick as they continue to hang in there to change the country. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is another good pick since he dominated a lot of the news during the year with stances that he took on Disney and immigration.

The last three who I would think would be the top three are Elon Musk, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Musk dominated the latter part of the year with his effort to buy Twitter and the freakout by the folks on the left. He’s already upset their apple cart, dropping the Twitter files for greater transparency and championing free speech – a huge change. While he certainly has dominated the news, particularly in the past month, he won last year, so I would think that’s less likely that they’d name him two years in a row. And now he’s on the liberal “bad” list, so that also makes it less likely.

The remaining two are the U.S. Supreme Court and Volodymyr Zelensky. Now, SCOTUS particularly with the decision to overturn Roe has certainly had significant influence, now and into the future. That’s a monumental decision. But Time wouldn’t choose them because that might look like they approve of that decision and they can’t have that. They will choose Zelensky because they want to give the nod to Ukraine.