January 2, 2002 8:20 a.m.

elcome back, y’all. With a year’s worth of griping — and observing and opining and cooing, etc. — ahead of us, we might as well jump right in.

Time magazine has named Rudy “Person of the Year” — and the very phrase is what I wish to discuss, at the moment. I find it a most ugly phrase: “Person of the Year.” It sounds so generic, sort of unreal. It’s as though to say, “Not a Vegetable or a Mineral.” The loss of “Man of the Year” would be another of the many hits our glorious American language has taken over the last couple of decades.

If you want to select a man as the top dog of the year, that should be “Man of the Year.” If you want to select a woman, make it “Woman of the Year.” But “Person”? Gross. It makes your ears go “yuck.” Isn’t Time embarrassed by the very unmusicality of it?

Then there’s this year’s selection itself. I’m glad it was Rudy and not bin Laden — that “most influential” or “consequential” stuff is for the birds. Someone designated “Man of the Year” — or even “Person of the Year” — should have some degree of admirability about him. A fighter against evil would be much better than the representation of evil itself.

I’m delighted that the mainstream media have come to see the worth of Rudy Giuliani: but he was always invaluable — long before 9/11. Making New York City habitable again — after everyone said it was the “Rotten Apple” and “ungovernable,” etc. — was a much harder job, and is a much more remarkable achievement, than bucking the city up after the terrorist attack. Seems like only yesterday when the media were damning Giuliani as a racist brute who despised and denied civil liberties. (By the way, the right to be safe in your living place is probably the greatest civil liberty of all.) But they like him a little better now — though he hasn’t changed an iota. Standing up to New York criminals, standing up to Yemen-born terrorists: no big difference.

But, in my view, Time’s award should have gone to The One Whose Abilities and Value So Many Are Loath to Acknowledge: and I speak of our president, George W. Bush. He has performed magnificently since the attacks. He has hardly put a foot wrong. He is exactly the man who should be in the country’s most important job right now. On the tube, we may see more of Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, or whomever (or Geraldo). But “the man behind the desk” — as the first Bush used to say — is the critical guy in this effort, and George W. has filled the role magnificently.

It could be that, as with Reagan, it’ll take a long, long time for W. to receive his due. But history’s long (and not always owned by left-liberals). I’m glad Bush is president — which seems a simple statement, but is one I don’t take, or make, lightly. If I had to name a Man of the Year, it would be him. (Hey: Since I’m talking about Bush, I might as well be colloquial. Thus, “him.”)

With New York on my mind, I’d like to relate the following: Ed Koch is probably the most delightful politician I know or know of. Years ago, when Koch was still mayor, Robert Novak called him “the most interesting politician in America.” That, he probably was; he is — again — the most delightful, in my view.

One of his most delightful stories concerns the night he was first elected mayor, or rather, the day after. The way he tells it is (something like) this: “I was out on the boardwalk, and an elderly lady came running up to me — as run she could — and said, ‘Oh, Mayuh: Make it like it was.’ And I said, ‘Dear, it will never be like it was. But we can do better.’”

I always loved that story (and first heard it in the mid ’80s, I believe), but something always bothered me: I thought, “Why can’t it be like it was? Why can’t it be civil and decent and enjoyable? Why shouldn’t people be able to sleep in Central Park anymore? Why shouldn’t people be able to take the subway without fear? Have human beings — has human nature — changed radically (or at all) in a few decades? Are we unable to police, unable to teach children right from wrong, unable to respect the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount?”

Frankly, I never believed that it couldn’t be like it was. I also thought the assertion — that we could never regain a decent time — was just a little . . . racist. The suggestion was, “Black America is hopelessly fraught with pathologies” — our word of choice — “and nothing can be done about it, period. Adjust.”

Well, Giuliani showed how far back we can “turn back the clock.” That’s the phrase that liberals love to hurl at conservatives: “turn back the clock.” Truth is, turning back the clock ain’t so bad some of the time. It doesn’t necessarily mean separate drinking fountains, despite what left propagandists may tell you.

Yes, it could be like it was — you could sleep in Central Park on a hot July night — if people wanted it. If they cared enough. If they were determined enough. Human beings aren’t any different than they were in 1936, say. Poverty and crime have nothing to do with each other, as Ed Koch — to his everlasting credit — insisted. In the teeth of the Great Depression — talk about poverty, nothing like we see today — you could walk around the city, no problem. It was a question of character, both individual and collective. People were poor, not bad.

If only “we” wanted, it could be like it was. But with the ACLU saying that people have a right to freeze on the streets in January, that the authorities can’t make them come indoors . . . With the ACLU saying that it is impermissible for police to frisk the “suspicious-looking” — which is in large measure how New York under Giuliani was able to beat crime — . . . you got no shot (as my uncle would say).

Okay, this is something: Name the strangest celebrity wedding or union or relationship or whatever you can think of. I know I have my candidate: George Lazenby and Pam Shriver are getting married, or so we hear. Lazenby, you’ll remember, is the actor who played James Bond, just once, after Connery and before Moore, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Shriver is the one-time professional tennis player who was a big buddy of the first Bush, playing with him at charity events, on the court at the White House, etc. Who knew that they ever could meet? Who knew that they ever could hook up? Who knew that they ever could marry? Lazenby-Shriver: sounds kinda like a political ticket.

Switch back to New York for a second: Mike Bloomberg, Rudy’s successor, poor guy, invited Al Sharpton to his inauguration. It would have been far more encouraging if Bloomberg had invited Steven Pagones — the poor s.o.b whose life Sharpton ruined when he slandered him before the world as the rapist of Tawana Brawley — to the damn thing.

Back to nicey-nice: One of the coolest things I saw this Christmas season was a kind of double-sign on a front yard in Weirton, W.V.: It said, “Merry Christmas and God Bless America.” Professionally done. What a lovely, moving, and unusual (one once would’ve thought) conjunction of two of the sweetest and dearest phrases in the language: “Merry Christmas” and “God Bless America.”

There was a story the other week about some Australian firm’s giving gift certificates to brothels for Christmas — this was an employee bonus, it seems. But my aim here — as so often in this column — is linguistic. A government official said, “This is a case of Aussie bloke-ism gone too far.” I adore that phrase: “Aussie bloke-ism.” I will look for occasions to employ it. And a spokesman for the Australian Family Association said, “We don’t think it’s appropriate for the Christmas season. Why can’t we just stick to the old way of a bottle of whiskey . . .?”

I love that too: The Family Association pining for the good ol’ days of a bottle of whiskey!

All right, two more heartwarming (in my opinion) stories from this Christmas. I’m in the airport — La Guardia — and a little boy, about three, is with his dad, in the magazine shop. He is singing the march from The Nutcracker. He isn’t singing words, obviously, and the notes aren’t perfect, but the pitches, in relation to one another — up, down — are pretty much perfect, and the rhythm is absolutely perfect, and he kept singing it, over and over, with real character and verve, and I was absolutely amazed and delighted.

Okay, Heartwarming Story No. 2. I arrive at a house — West Virginia again — that contains seven young nieces and nephews. We ring the doorbell. Little-girl voice over the intercom: “Who is it?” Answer: “Pia and Jay.” There follows a second of silence. Then, the pounding of feet — 14 feet — racing down a couple of flights of stairs, as though there’d be a reward for the winner, sounding like a herd of juvenile elephants, and bursting through the door, to hug you madly.

Now that’s living, for which I’m grateful.