In an election year filled with low blows, 9/11 commission chairman Kean, right, and vice chairman Hamilton stood tall-- cajoling testimony from Condoleezza Rice and President Bush, accessing key high-level documents and pushing Congress to pass sweeping intelligence reform. Along the way, their 567-page report about the day the Twin Towers fell became a best seller.
For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year