When he said the head of the department of defense, even Walters, who chose him as one of her "10 Most Fascinating People" of the year, looked stunned and said, "What?"
– For the first time ever, Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating Person of the Year is no longer alive: She chose Steve Jobs. Walters had already selected the Apple founder when he announced his retirement from the company, but never got the chance to sit down with him for the interview. It seemed appropriate to break the show’s rule that "every fascinating person must be living," Walters said last night, because "rules were made to be broken—and that’s certainly how Steve Jobs lived his life." Another interesting entry on the list that was not initially reported: Herman Cain. In an amusing portion of his interview picked up by the Daily Beast, he told Walters he would like to be defense secretary. Fortunately, he acknowledged that he was speaking “totally, totally hypothetical,” because he just might have a few foreign policy issues. The Daily Beast notes that Walters "looked stunned" and replied, "What?" Click for the rest of Walters' Top 10.