Guess who's Time's Person of the Year?

This just in from Mike Allen's Politico Playbook Daily Update

BREAKING -- Hang onto the straps of your breakfast nooks. (Jack Carmody homage.) Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel did his Person of the Year 'reveal' on NBC's 'Today' show and it is ... Barack Obama. 'Really?!' Meredith Vieira quipped. Stengel: 'The Person of the Year was in effect INVENTED for Barack Obama. He's a transformational figure. He's done something extraordinary: He's made some promises that he's actually kept already. ... Look, we thought about possibly giving it to the American voter for ELECTING Barack Obama. The economy, for tipping the scales in his favor. But, ultimately, he is the QUINTESSENTIAL Person of the Year.'

In an interview, Obama tells Time:

--'On what 'change' means to him: 'I don't think that Americans want hubris from their next President ... [But] I do think that we received a strong mandate for change. And I know that people have said, 'Well, what does this CHANGE mean?' ... It means a government that is not ideologically driven. It means a government that is competent. It means a government, most importantly, that is focused day in, day out on the needs and struggles, the hopes and dreams of ordinary people.'

--On the economy: 'If we make some good choices, I'm confident that we can limit some of the damage in 2009. And that in 2010 we can start seeing an upward trajectory on the economy.'

Stengel writes in his Letter to Readers: 'Our cover portrait is by the street artist Shepard Fairey whose roots are in the skateboarding world and whose early poster of then Senator Obama became the great populist image of the campaign. ... We open our Person of the Year package with a dazzling array of images culled from those created by thousands of individuals from around the world and posted on the image-sharing site Flickr. Obama always said his candidacy was not about him, but 'all of you,' and now, along with Flickr, we're helping to give 'all of you' a voice.'

Time's news release: 'The issue also includes 26 never-before-seen photographs of Obama that were taken during a photo shoot when he was a freshman at Occidental College in 1980 by fellow student Lisa Black, who found the stash of negatives in her basement earlier this year and promptly stuck them in a safety-deposit box. The remarkably candid photos show a 20-year-old Obama posing, relaxed and holding a cigarette. ... Also in the Person of the Year issue: Stories about #2 Henry Paulson, #3 Nicolas Sarkozy, #4 Sarah Palin and #5 Zhang Yimou. Steven Spielberg profiles Chinese director Zhang Yimou, the man responsible for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.'