Time is publishing a special issue dedicated to Osama Bin Laden’s death on Thursday, marking the first time the magazine has ever released three issues in one week. Time released a special Royal Wedding issue today, and its regular issue goes on sale Friday.

As you can see, Bin Laden got the iconic “x” treatment from Time. It’s only the fourth time the cover has been used. Other “x” worthy people: Adolf Hilter (May 7, 1945), Saddam Hussein (April 21, 2003), and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (June 19, 2006). That’s quite a list.

The Bin Laden issue will be the regular price of $4.99, and feature pieces from Joe Klein, Fareed Zakaria, and David von Drehle.

As we reach November’s end, it’s time for one of my favorite annual customs: Looking back. Few do this better than Time magazine, and, this time, the magazine is not only reviewing the past year, but major news events of the decade now coming to an end.

Time‘s single-topic retrospective, titled TimeFrames, went live online this morning and will be available on newsstands this Friday. The magazine has also joined with CNN to produce a primetime show, “TimeFrames: A John King Special.” The special, which features interviews with managing editor Richard Stengel, Time executive editor Nancy Gibbs, Joe Klein, Fareed Zakaria and other Time editors and writers, will air tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET and throughout this holiday weekend.

In addition, the magazine has worked on an ad campaign focused on Time magazine’s iconic red border.

Further information can be found online at www.time.com/timeframesissue, including a video on Time‘s reporting of the major events of the past ten years, featuring Gibbs.

In his letter to readers, Stengel touches upon a particular duality when taking a look at our rapidly changign world:

Read more

Fareed Zakaria has debuted the first entry for his new Time column. The magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel introduces the column in his Letter to Readers:

Fareed is quite simply one of the foremost public intellectuals of our time. He does something that is rare: he connects the dots on foreign policy, politics, the economy and the larger culture to make sense of the world’s most important ideas and trends. And he does it with a subtlety that is nevertheless clear and accessible. For him, politics and international affairs are complex and gray, not black and white.

In his inaugural post, “The Real Challenge from China: Its People, Not Its Currency,” Zakaria takes a look on how China is investing in its people as the country “moves up the value chain.” This is the first column Zakaria has written for Time since leaving his post as editor of Newsweek International.

Also in this week’s issue, Joe Klein‘s cover story offers a look at what happens when a New York-based journalist criss-crosses the country to meet with “real” Americans in order to get a sense of what, exactly, is on people’s minds as we approach midterm elections. Klein’s 6,782-mile trek is also chronicled in daily entries on Time.com’s  Swampland blog.

As the day has progressed, many media outlets have announced plans to pay tribute to Sen. Edward Kennedy. Here’s some of what we’re getting ready to see:

Time magazine is planning a commemorative issue that will feature Kennedy on the cover with tributes inside from Joe Klein, Bob Shrum, Ted Sorensen and Mike Barnicle. It is set to hit newsstands Friday. The last time Time put out a commemorative issue was to mark Michael Jackson‘s death in June.

Tonight at 9 p.m., MSNBC will present a “first look” of “The Kennedy Brothers: A Hardball Documentary.” The doc will also air, as scheduled, tomorrow at 7.

At 10 p.m., ABC News will broadcast an hour-long special, “Remembering Ted Kennedy,” which will focus on his life and legacy, anchored by Charles Gibson from Hyannis Port, Mass. and Diane Sawyer in New York.

TVNewser has a list of some of the other television specials that will be airing tonight on the networks and cable news channels.

We’re sure there will be more to come. If you hear of anything interesting memorializing Kennedy let us know.

Is this the media equivalent of going through the looking glass? Jay Carney, Time‘s Washington bureau chief, contributor at Swampland, and regular guest on This Week (along with his wife Claire Shipman. Question: will she be allowed to cover the White House for ABC after his switch?) has announced he is departing the magazine to become Joe Biden‘s communication’s director. Let the liberal media bias claims begin! Actually Carney covered the McCain campaign and was far more criticized by the left-wing chorus than the right.

Over at Politico Michael Calderone has some reactions from the Time camp. Says Joe Klein: “I didn’t even know Jay was a democrat…Really, he has great Republican sources from his days covering the Bush White House and he’s one of those guys who always seemed pretty balanced at editorial meetings when it came to evaluating the latest developments. (Which I guess is a quality you want in a communications director.)” Indeed. Time editor Rick Stengel was quick to point out that this was not a measure of print’s uncertain future. Of course if you had the choice between the Obama administration and an industry that is tanking at alarming rates, what would you do?

Read more

We told you a few weeks ago how John McCain‘s press plane had quite suddenly found itself without room for Maureen Dowd, who by certain coincidence was in the process of penning a not-so-flattering column on the introduction of Sarah Palin. Well looks like MoDo will have some company. Seems Time‘s Joe Klein has also been given the boot (maybe if he changed his last name to Plumber?) even though there were apparently empty spaces on the plane last week. Per Politico:

“I rode with McCain during the primaries, but not since I asked him — at a June press conference — whether he really believed Ahmadinejad was the ‘leader’ of Iran, since he has no control over foreign policy or the nuclear program…That was when they suddenly told me that I hadn’t called in time to get secret service clearance. (I had called more than a day in advance.)”

Klein has been an increasingly harsh critic of McCain these last few months, however, he also points out that this is the first time this has ever happened to him including the time it was revealed that he was the author of Primary Colors, “I was even allowed — I won’t say welcomed — on the Clinton plane in the summer of 1996.” If nothing else McCain and Palin appear to be making a lot of Clinton critics nostalgic for the nineties. For his part, Andrew Sullivan thinks it will one day be considered a badge of merit, though in the current news cycle ‘someday’ is actually the equivalent of next month.

We took a stroll around the Internets this morning to see what Joe Klein, Peggy Noonan, Andrew Sullivan and other powers that be were saying about last night’s debate. The general consensus? Palin exceeded her extremely low expectations. Also? SNL got lots of new material.

Peggy Noonan (WSJ): As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic “talk over the heads of the media straight to the people,” and it is a long time since I’ve seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

David Brooks (NYT): When nervous, Palin has a tendency to over-enunciate her words like a graduate of the George W. Bush School of Oratory, but Thursday night she spoke like a normal person. It took her about 15 seconds to define her persona — the straight-talking mom from regular America — and it was immediately clear that the night would be filled with tales of soccer moms, hockey moms, Joe Sixpacks, main-streeters, “you betchas” and “darn rights.” Somewhere in heaven Norman Rockwell is smiling.

Read more

Sorry if we’re putting the cart before the horse, but the thing that got our attention first was the new Time.com political blog Swampland to which former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox is contributing, along with Jay Carney, Karen Tumulty and Joe Klein.

Time.com also launched its redesign, and FishbowlDC rounds up the Times on it, as well as runs the release.

EARLIER: