The "Financial Times" (http://macte.ch/eSQnC) has named Apple CEO Steve Jobs as "Person of the Year." And he also got a shout-out from the President of the United States.

Jobs is described by the "Financial Times" as "a stern taskmaster who understands the art of the possible, rather than a long-range visionary. That means pushing relentlessly forward rather than milking old successes – even ones as significant as the iPod.”

Jobs’ perfectionism during Apple product launch events, his mastery of the “Reality distortion field” -- "is ability to convince onlookers that technologies that would seem unformed in other hands have reached a peak of perfection at Apple" -- and the way he has successfully bounced back from last year’s liver transplant are other qualities praised by the "Financial Times."

And if the "Financial Times" naming him as "Person of the Year wasn't enough for Jobs, President Obama also cited him (http://macte.ch/J7UXI) as an example of the American Dream. 

"We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products," the President said at a Wednesday press briefing. "We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing. We want that incentive. That's part of the free market."

Obama, who went out of his way to schedule a one-on-one with Apple's (AAPL) CEO during his fund-raising swing through Silicon Valley in October, was responding to a question about whether there is a divide between middle-class and wealthy Americans, notes "Fortune" (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/23/an-obama-shout-out-for-steve-jobs...).

-- Dennis Sellers