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BEST ROOKIE

Barack Obama

Is his the face of a future president? Plenty of people have thought so, ever since he crushed his competitors in a seven-way primary last March and began his inexorable march toward a seat as the junior U.S. senator from Illinois. It didn't hurt that his first Republican competitor imploded in a sex-club scandal and his second was Alan Keyes, who, in the words of one political scientist, "alienated almost every constituency in this state," but Barack Obama's "positives" are overwhelming: he's young (43), multicultural (his dad was a black Kenyan and his mother a white Kansan), smart (president of the Harvard Law Review), and good at raking in cash (raised more than $ 14 million in 2004). All that and he's amazingly handsome (for a politician) and oozes self-deprecating charm. His keynote-speech description of himself as "a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him" was the hit of the Democratic National Convention. Now, with the Democratic Party starved for leaders it can believe in, the nation's most promising freshman—the third African-American senator since Reconstruction—is finally headed to the Hill.

Photographed with his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, three-year-old Sasha and six-year-old Malia, by Annie Leibovitz at the Obama for Illinois headquarters in Chicago on October 8, 2004.

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BEST "IT GIRL"

Scarlett Johansson

"For older women, death happens inside. What comes with that death is a kind of liberation." No, that's not Camille Paglia. That was 18-year-old Scarlett Johansson, now 20, who has proven you don't need to be in a princess movie to be a 21 st-century "It girl." First noticed in The Horse Whisperer, in 1998, alongside Robert Redford, Johansson has since carved out a niche playing the quasi-erotic inspiration for lost older men in The Man Who Wasn't There, opposite Billy Bob Thornton, and Girl with a Pearl Earring, with Colin Firth. But it was in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, in which she starred with Bill Murray, that audiences experienced the Scarlett essence—the vulnerability, the wisdom, the undeniable 'tude. A Lauren Bacall for the indie generation—with lips every bit as seductive—this born-and-bred New Yorker will continue, for now, playing the precocious savior to old guys who need help. Look for A Love Song for Bobby Long, with John Travolta, and A Good Woman, with Tom Wilkinson. Somewhere, rest assured, there's still a kid inside: first up is In Good Company, with 26-year-old Topher Grace; then a starring role opposite a significantly untormented fellow—SpongeBob SquarePants.

Photographed by Annis Leibovitz at the Chateau Marmont, a. in Los Angeles, on October 13, 2004.

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BEST ANCHOR

Jon Stewart

In an age in which the frothing of Ann Coulter and the quoting of press releases pass for reporting the news, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has become the go-to program for people seeking not just laughs but the truth. Stewart (second from left) took over the anchor desk from Craig Kilborn in 1999, and with the 2000 Florida recount the show began homing in on its target—absurd politicians and the limp media who cover them—to devastating effect. One terrific bit, "Great Moments in Punditry," has third-graders reading transcripts of the shouting matches on Crossfire and Hardball. But the real key to its success is Stewart's winning, nothing-to-prove personality. No one is more deft at the genial skewer. When Fox's John Gibson complained that the Arab television network Al Jazeera was propagandistic, Stewart cheerily noted, "It seems to me that Al Jazeera is, in some respects, the clumsy Fox." With five Emmys, a Peabody Award, and more than a million viewers, Stewart has mustered the kind of chutzpah necessary to go on Crossfire, drop the irony, and give the "hacktacular" hosts, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, a long-overdue dressing-down. "They said I wasn't being funny," Stewart said a couple of days later on The Daily Show. "And I said to them, 'I know that. But tomorrow I will go back to being  funny and your show will still blow.'"

Photographed with, from left, Daily Show writers Rich Blomquist, J. R. Havian, Jason Reich, and Tim Carvell by Annie Leibovitz on the Daily Show set, in New York City, on October 7, 2004.

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BEST SWINGER

Roger Federer

The number that got most everyone's attention is three, as in the three tennis majors Roger Federer won in 2004: the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. No one had won three grand-slam tournaments in a calendar year since 1988. The number that gets us, though, is 18, as in the number of consecutive matches (through October) that Federer has won against Top 10 opponents. Andy Roddick, the world's No. 2 player, whom everyone had anointed the prince of tennis just a couple of years ago, has beaten him only once in nine tries. It's a dominance the men's game hasn't seen since 1984, when John McEnroe lost just 3 of 85 matches. So what does Mac think of the 23-year-old Swiss? As he watched him obliterate Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets at the U.S. Open, he deemed Federer simply "the best player I've ever laid eyes on." And you know Mac has a mirror.

Photographed by Mark Seliger in Los Angeles on September 19, 2004.

BEST PROVIDER

John Mackey 

The founder of Whole Foods Market may be just the to heal the divide between red and blue America: a Ronald Reagan-loving, Adam Smith-quoting, Wall Street Journal op-ed-page-reading libertarian who makes his living selling shiny organic apples and allegedly tasty tofu dogs to NPR listeners in places such as Palo Alto, California; Portland, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin— and even New York City, that tough town not known for its friendliness to either conservatism or rice milk. Though he insists suppliers practice sustainable agriculture and allow livestock to "fulfill their animal potential," John Mackey otherwise runs his 162-store chain the way any hard-nosed businessman would, buying up competitors, fighting unions, pushing the company this year to the brink of the Fortune 500. But no one will deny the real key to Whole Foods' success: no more musty-yeasty-old-hippies-in-hand-knit-wool-socks-health-food-store stink. Praise the Lord and pass the Kashi!

Photographed at his home near Austin, Texas, by Jonas Karlsson on October 25, 2004.

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BEST CRUSADERS

The Jersey Girls

History will record the efforts of (from left) Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg, four moms from the New Jersey suburbs who refused to let the government off the hook after their husbands were killed in the World Trade Center attacks. When they joined forces, after a survivor support-group meeting, these women knew nothing about the nation's byzantine corridors of power, but official Washington was no match for "the Jersey girls," as they've come to be known. With unbreakable resolve, relentless curiosity, and ( willingness to use their preternatural ability to get booked on talk shows as both a carrot and a stick, they forced lawmakers to create the 9/11 commission, pressured Condoleezza Rice to publicly testify before it, and lobbied hard for the passage of its recommended national-security reforms into law. What's their secret? "We weren't awestruck by the people we were talking to," Kleinberg told PBS. "They were just other Americans who we needed to help us. So you know what? We did it."

Photographed by Jonas Karlsson at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey, on October 18, 2004.

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BEST BRAIN

Karl Rove

As usual, the pundits and pollsters hadn't a clue. When pressed to name the active ingredient in the 2004 presidential cauldron (A. Iraq, B. Terrorism, C. Jobs, D. Values), nobody chose "None of the Above." The answer, in fact, was K., as in Karl Rove. The president's resident poll-cat, re-election strategist, and all-around Yoda, Rove was masterly this year at setting the campaign's themes, pace, and rough-and-tumble tenor. As part of his plan to bring home the bacon, Rove convened a regular weekend Karl Klatch at his D.C. home, cooking up "eggies" (eggs, butter, heavy cream, and bacon grease) for insiders plotting a second term, including White House communications director Dan Bartlett, senior adviser Mary Matalin, and chief media adviser Mark McKinnon. Rove's recipe for victory? Play to Bush's base (notably conservatives and the religious right); target the opponent's strong suit (and hardly protest when Vietnam vets gang up on Kerry with a Swift kick in his camo); stage the convention seven subway stops from Ground Zero, and way late; beat the Democrats at their own get-out-the-vote ground game; and, throughout, marinate the red meat with the elan of Jacques Pépin. Then serve up states both red and blue, cut razor-thin.

Photographed in his West Wing office by Harry Benson at 2:30 P.M. on November 3, 2004, as John Kerry delivered his concession speech.

BEST SLAP IN THE FACE

David Hare

"Stuff happens" was Donald Rumsfeld's reaction to the news that Baghdad was being looted in April 2003, after the fall of Saddam. From this profoundly callous remark the British playwright Sir David Hare took the title for his masterly drama on the political and diplomatic lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, Stuff Happens is staged at London's National Theatre on an almost bare set and with a total absence of dramatic glamour, lyricism, and trickery. Yet the audience's attention never wanders. The mix of fiction and lines actually said by Bush, Blair, Cheney, and the rest of them brilliantly encapsulates the events of the last four years and brings them into a new and shocking focus. One of Britain's most prolific dramatists, Hare has said this is a history play which happens to center on very recent history. True, but its power comes from the present and an ability to inspire and widen public discourse in a way that is all but forgotten in newspapers and television. With Stuff Happens, Hare has done both the theater and our times an enormous service.

Photographed by Hugh Stewart in London on October 29, 2004.

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BEST SCOOP

Seymour Hersh

Seymour Hersh is exactly what a reporter should be: inquisitive, dogged, skeptical, fearless, and cranky as hell. At 67, he's ahead of the pack of American pack journalists. In a time when too many reporters are content to squabble on cable, he feverishly digs up the stuff that historians likely will be chewing over a hundred years from now. In 1969, Hersh, then a lowly but tenacious freelancer, nailed down the story of the My Lai massacre, in which Lieutenant William Calley and his troops gunned down hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. Flash forward 35 years. Another war, another atrocity. Writing for The New Yorker, he was the first print journalist to chronicle the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a story that was just one of many eye-openers he has reported since 2001. Hersh is often critical of American power, but his life has been an American Dream: this scourge of the administration is the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who ran a dry-cleaning business on Chicago's South Side.

Photographed by Jonas Karlsson at the New York Public Library on October 20, 2004.

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BEST PIPES

Jamie Cullum

Jamie Cullum, 24, grew up in rural Wiltshire, England, which has never been referred to as the New Orleans of Great Britain, nor even its Hoboken. And yet the singer-pianist has emerged as one of the most promising young crooners in the current boom of traditional adult pop, evoking dreams of ringside tables at the Copa or the Sands, of mink-lined romance and diamond-cuff-link savoir faire. His first album, Twentysomething, for which he himself wrote most of the songs (including the titular would-be anthem), has reached number two on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. Cullum's throaty voice and piano-based, lightly jazz-inflected pop may put you in mind of Billy Joel's less turgid moments, but Cullum can deconstruct a standard with the best of them: for his take on "I Could Have Danced All Night" he claims he swiped a bass line from the Headhunters, Herbie Hancock's jazz-funk band. He may have also picked up a few things from his musician parents, who used to play in an amateur pub band back in Wiltshire.

Photographed by Bruce Weber at Golden Beach, Florida, on January 19, 2004.

BEST RECALL

Ken Jennings

Answer: Last year, the syndicated game show Jeopardy!, much loved by game-show purists turned off by Fear Factor and its ilk, reversed its 20-year policy of limiting champions to five wins, allowing for this likable software engineer, a graduate of Brigham Young University who resides outside Salt Lake City with his wife, Mindy, a young son, Dylan, and a dog named Banjo, to buzz his way to 75 straight victories, not to mention nationwide fame and more than $2.5 million in prize money, while sending the ratings of the venerable show, hosted by the amusingly touchy Alex Trebek, upward by 19 percent over the previous season

And the question is ...

Photographed at his home in Murray, Utah, by Art Streiber on October 9, 2004.

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BEST FINGERS

Leif Ove Andsnes

Some pianists are like acrobats who seek to dazzle audiences with their speed, strength, and agility, but here is a different breed of soloist. Leif Ove Andsnes was a shy boy from rural Norway who was born with an exceptional musical gift, and he somehow developed his talent without becoming a show-off. He achieves his goal with an understated virtuosity, a warmly glowing tone, and a sensibility that has a way of bridging opposites: the grandeur of the historic and the breezy freshness of the new; the cultivated sound of the Scandinavian cities where he now lives and the pristine beauty of the Norwegian mountains, to which he often retreats; and, perhaps best of all, the mature musical mastery he has attained and the boyish sense of wonder he has apparently never lost. Critics have been heaping superlatives on this soft-spoken powerhouse, especially in the last few years as his repertoire has widened, his recordings have multiplied, and his quiet confidence has grown all the more commanding. This year Carnegie Hall has rewarded him with a "Perspectives" series of seven concerts spread over a single season. It's an honor reserved for major figures of the field, and Andsnes, at 34, is the youngest player ever to receive it.

Photographed by Jonas Karlsson near Ballstad, in the Lofoten Isles, Norway, on July 9, 2004.

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BEST MOVES

Paul Taylor

In his 1954 production of The Nutcracker, George Balanchine spent $25,000 on a Christmas tree that would grow through the rafters. That same year, a penniless 23-year-old named Paul Taylor choreographed a dance, his first, called Jack and the Beanstalk. The beanstalk was a string. Who could have known that of all the choreographic talent blessing the 20th century only Taylor would create a metaphysical realm as vast and varied as Balanchine's, as deeply musical and full of creaturely beings, as joyfully communal yet shot through with sadness, as heavenly too, but funnier, faster, and prophetically arsenic-dark. Taylor did this in modern dance, bringing to the land of bare feet and unadorned steps a gladiator scale, a Darwinian objectivity. Gluteus Maximus cutting a swath. Martha Graham called Taylor "darling Pablo" and "naughty boy." Lincoln Kirstein noted a "sunny temperament" and a "dark obverse." Fifty years into his genius, more than 100 dances to his name, we're still wondering if Taylor is more Jack or the Giant. And that's what makes him the greatest choreographer in the world: wonder.

Photographed at his home in Mattituck, New York, by John Huba on October 6, 2004.

BEST STROKE

Michael Phelps 

Leading up to Athens, it seemed as if all anyone spoke about was Michael Phelps's quest to break Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics. Commentators said it would be a disappointment if the 19-year-old didn't break the record, a failure if he didn't at least tie it. Failure, my fin! He won just six golds—as if there is anything just about six—to which he added two bronzes. The bounty made him the only athlete, in any sport, to win eight medals in a non-U.S.-boycotted Olympics. He set world and Olympic records, but it is for a race he didn't swim that Phelps should be remembered. He gave his spot in the 4-by-100-meter-medley final to teammate Ian Crocker, whom he had defeated just one day earlier in the 100-meter butterfly and whose disastrous leg in the 4-by-100 freestyle relay had cost the U.S. gold and Phelps a chance to tie Spitz's record. Truly a stroke of generosity.

Photographed by Bruce Weber in Baltimore on April 29, 2004.

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BEST SCOURGE

Michael Moore

Before the rise of Everyman filmmaker and author Michael Moore (second from left), the stereotypical liberal was seen as a granola-munching, Volvo-driving, French-film-watching elitist who meekly accepted being out of step with the rightward lurch of the culture at large. With funny, hard-edged, best-selling books and top-grossing documentaries that have challenged the powers that be, Moore has laid all that to rest. He fights back with a tenacity and a toughness that have countered the dovish image. In Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, he displays a willingness to slug it out with his ideological foes in a manner once more typical of conservatives than of certain of his overly polite fellow travelers. And given his ever present baseball cap, bulky frame, and slobbish appearance, this proudly populist son of an autoworker from Flint, Michigan, makes it clear that, as John Lennon sang, "a working-class hero is something to be."

Photographed with, from left, Bernardo Loyola, Kirsten Johnson, and Gabriel Monts by Annie Leibovitz in Del Mar, California, on October 12, 2004.

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BEST STEWARDS

The Environmentalists 

From left: Bill Richardson, governor, New Mexico; Brent Blackwelder, president, Friends of the Earth; Bill Wade, former superintendent, National Park Service; Ralph G. Neas, president, People for the American Way Foundation; Kathy Seddon, minority counsel, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs; Carol M. Browner, former administrator, Environmental Protection Agency; Eric Barlow, rancher; Eric Schaeffer, former director, E.P.A.'s Office of Regulatory Enforcement; Chris Wood, vice president for conservation programs, Trout Unlimited; Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel, Earthjustice; Faith Gemmill, program director, Gwich'in Steering Committee; Byron D. Sher, state senator, California; Horst Rechelbacher, founder, Aveda Corporation; Scott Anderson, Greenpeace activist; John D. Leshy, former solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior; Tweeti Blancett, rancher; John H. Adams, executive director, Natural Resources Defense Council; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chief prosecuting attorney, Riverkeeper; Carl Pope, executive director, Sierra Club; Gloria Flora, founder, Sustainable Obtainable Solutions; Hillary Hosta, Greenpeace activist; Rodger Schlickeisen, president, Defenders of Wildlife.

In a world where logging of America's old-growth forests is called "the Healthy Forests Initiative" and where former lobbyists from the oil and gas industries are responsible for protecting America's water, air, and soil, the task of environmentalists has grown herculean. Fortunately, many of the nation's leading activists have proved more than up to the job. With high-profile legal battles and a scathing book, Crimes Against Nature, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led the charge. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson thumbed his nose at energy interests, encouraged the development of alternative energy, and fought coal-bed methane drilling. Civil libertarian Ralph G. Neas opposed the appointment of judges who would threaten environmental protections. Eric Barlow and Tweeti Blancett, both ranchers (in Wyoming and New Mexico, respectively), joined with environmentalists and Native American groups to force a showdown over the administration's drill-at-any-cost policy. In Bush's America, where profits beat the planet every time, these lawyers, lobbyists, and activists stood up, stood apart, and staked a claim on the future of the Earth.

Photographed by Art Streiber at Lake Tahoe, California, on October 29, 2004.