--- title: TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4 | TIME description: Part 4 of TIME's panel discussion with Mario Batali, Jesse Eisenberg, Anita Hill, Seth Meyers, Grover Norquist and Brian Williams on who should be the 2011 Person of the Year canonical: https://time.com/video/E9doK1ai/ og:title: TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4 og:description: Part 4 of TIME's panel discussion with Mario Batali, Jesse Eisenberg, Anita Hill, Seth Meyers, Grover Norquist and Brian Williams on who should be the 2011 Person of the Year og:url: https://time.com/video/E9doK1ai/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/E9doK1ai/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4 twitter:description: Part 4 of TIME's panel discussion with Mario Batali, Jesse Eisenberg, Anita Hill, Seth Meyers, Grover Norquist and Brian Williams on who should be the 2011 Person of the Year twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/E9doK1ai/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4 > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4 [Watch (HLS stream): TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 4](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/E9doK1ai.m3u8) (7:50)  _Published 2011-11-17. Part 4 of TIME's panel discussion with Mario Batali, Jesse Eisenberg, Anita Hill, Seth Meyers, Grover Norquist and Brian Williams on who should be the 2011 Person of the Year_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:19 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 2](/video/mLLs1DNM/) ### TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 2 [TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 3](/video/vx62RRLX/) ### TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 3 [TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 6](/video/wxZQLhKO/) ### TIME 2011 Person of the Year Panel - Part 6 --- ## Transcript We, we have an election going on in this country, and the fact that not a single person on the panel has talked about anybody in American politics. And not even the President of the United States, who you could argue from a pure power perspective, could be person of the year, every year, no matter who is President. What does that say? I think there's just a there's a gridlock in politics that everybody's aware of and it's very hard to wanna, honor anyone in the system that's getting so little done. I willl say, as a, a, as a comedy writer I think the GOP presidential field could be person of the year. [ LAUGH ] did you have to put them all together to make one person? : Actually you put them all together to get that wide shot it's wonderful. [ LAUGH ] Well also in just in terms of being evil there's not really that many evil politicians in that there's no, there's no real evil plan, there's just a 50- 50. We've never been at such a parody, so There's no plan at all. [ LAUGH ] There's no plan at all, it's just a question of going into a knife fight and trying to knife the other guy as quickly as you can, get back comfortably, and then make a little PR statement that you won that little battle. So as the system is more evil than any of the evil players, there's no evil guys that are winning and there's really no good guys that are winning, so the politics guys are. Just kinda left kept holding the bag. [ CROSSTALK ]. When it comes to the banking industry, I'll be there with so many people, who if you wanted to pick a face it's, it's really difficult. And that's even more difficult that I think than picking a face for Arab Spring. Because so many bankers got very, very wealthy. On the backs of, poor, poor people, communities of color, women who are going into the housing market for the first time, I mean it's amazing when you start to look at some of the numbers about how salaries went up, really built on the back of surprising loans that then, got. Sold and collapsed the whole system. And so, how do you find that face. Is it, is it the bankers are evil or is the system? That's evil. The bankers, no question. [ LAUGH ] Clever, can you come in and defend the republican field. Crosstalk The two guys you can pick, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, they had to go individual. [ LAUGH ] [ SOUND ]. << Okay. But you got [ CROSSTALK ] They just got $ 13 million worth of bonuses for their good work. Well, I, I think there is, I know one CEO got $ 53 million in, in compensation. At the height of [ UNKNOWN ] lending, so you know, it makes sad kind of look like small potato. But, what, but, let's talk about the Republican field, for a second. I mean, they've all, with the exception of John Huntsman, signed your No Tax Pledge. Somebody has made the suggestion, which I thought was a really interesting one, that Paul Ryan for Person of the Year, who, in effect, changed the debate. In, in the most macro way about. So it should be cutting the deficit, rather than increasing spending in any way. And that's become the tipping point for everything over the past year. Yeah. And four years from now, two years from now, you could look back and say, that's what changed. When Ryan actually did a, a budget. I mean, once of the criticisms of The white house didn't do a real budget this year, the Democratic Senate hasn't done a budget in three years. Ryan actually wrote out a budget that you can look at, read and score. And the drop spending, from what the President planned to do down six trillion over the next decade. So, it's a real budget and you can look at it. He does it by reforming government. Rather than just slicing it, let's do everything, stupid thing we've been doing, and do it 10 % less, let's do things differently [ COUGH ] try and make some of it sustainable. So long term, I think Ryan is the change, so that's why I'm not terribly interested in which Republican gets to sign the bills two years from now. They'll be signing Ryan's bills, and they can fly in the plane, that's nice, but they don't get to They won't be making the interesting decision that Ryan has. I think that's true cuz it's, it's becoming clear that Congress, you know, makes the legislature and, and, you know, at the end, the President can stop it if he wants but the President can't do much, which has become very clear these last three years. Which is why Congress, you know, certainly full of, you know, the majority that signed this pledge, you know, ultimately You know, when you just, you don't have the benefit of being able to raise taxes. To, I mean, we have this super- committee, which has got to work out, because they have super in the name. [ LAUGH ] I don't think we're gonna have much comeback from that either. I think this gridlock will continue to last. And I do think, I mean, when you hear Freddie May sorry, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac a lot. But I, I do think that's disingenuous and, and the banks, the you know, the banks they had a hard- sort of a higher amount of there you know, subprime mortgages default than Freddie and Fanny and it just gets said so much. Like you know you hear that 47 % of Americans don't pay taxes so much that it almost becomes fact, when it's not. What about our space program? Such a serious guy, Seth. I'm sorry, it's a serious year. It was fun in 2008. We had a lot of laughs. What about the space program? Oh, I forgot, we don't have one. What? What about the space program? Oh, I forgot, we don't have one. Which is sad! I mean that's, I mean Steve Jobs came from a time where you grew up and you know, I forget if Steve Jobs said it but you know came up at a time where there was the Beatles and men walking on the moon. That was a time that was inspiring. Well, It was also a time. In, in our current issue, which is about economic inequality and the, and the lack of social mobility in America, was a time as you saw in Walter's book that, you know, Steve Jobs had a fantastic public education from all the way the up through, you know, going to college and dropping out. I mean that, you know, you could make the argument that it's a decline in our education system. You know, that can be the, the, the, the bad guy of the year as it were. But you know what, I have, just talking about politics. Professor Hill, I just wanna put you on the spot for one second. I mean, we're right now in the middle of a Republican campaign, and there's a candidate, Herman Cain, who is going through something like what happened to you in, in 1991. I wonder whether you have any thought about, about how that will affect the campaign, any thoughts in particular about, about what's happening to To Mr. Cain right now? You know I've been, for the last few weeks on a book tour? [ LAUGH ] I'm sorry. I have no comment on Herman Cain. It'll help sell your book. No it won't. The book is not about Herman Cain. But you know, it's, people think that I follow politics probably, people believe I follow politics. More closely than I actually do follow politics. I 'll simply say there're some serious issues out there and we all know what they are. And I think any one of us could speculate about what the outcome would be but none of us know. I would say the most surprising thing to me about that whole thing is that anyone in this day and age in this information age thinks you can run for president and not have something like that come up. And at least not even have a plan as to how you address it when it comes up. I mean, there were settlements made you know, this is obviously a thing that happened. So whether it happened or not, you know, I think we'll find out more details, but that to me is the most shocking thing when politicians think they can get away with having affairs or having scandals, we live in an information age... A cell phone agent, and Steve Jobs has made it a lot harder for people to get away with it. Well, and you could make the argument that just liked we've talked for many, many years, it's not the crime, it's the cover- up. It's not the crime, but how you deal with it. I'm not saying he committed a crime, but the fact that, you don't, you, you have to deal with things in a crisis, that's the job of being president, Yeah. and if you don't have a response, that's, that's.... And people often frame themselves as straight talkers until they have to talk about themselves. [ LAUGH ] Like, you know that's like the whole Herman Cain campaign is like, I am different. I talk straight. 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