What Spock Would Tell President Obama

COMMENTARY | Several decades ago, Leonard Nimoy was obliged to publish a book entitled "I am Not Spock" about the Star Trek character that he has been so closely identified with. According to the Washington Examiner, President Obama has to make a similar denial.

It is not hard to see why. Even the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, who has praised what she saw as the president's intelligence, has also criticized what she thinks is his lack of feeling, specifically during the BP oil leak crisis. A cold and analytical mien that is necessary in a science officer is not very attractive in a leader. Spock himself would have agreed, by the way. It was never his desire to be captain of the star ship Enterprise. He knew perfectly well that his friend Jim Kirk, a feeling, go from the gut kind of guy, was more suitable for that position.

Besides, as Spock would say, Obama's presidency has been, well, illogical. If Spock were to beam down into the Oval Office some evening, he would tell the president so.

He would tell the president that his domestic policies fly in the face of centuries of understanding of economics. The president, no doubt, would respond that his health care reform law was an attempt to establish a logical system to manager health care in America. Spock would then arc that eyebrow and tell the president how illogical it is to attempt to direct order from above on a system with so many variables. Government run health care might work with Vulcans, but hardly with humans.

Obama would then try to suggest that much of his "smart diplomacy" approach to foreign policy was not only logical, but in keeping with the Vulcan approach as established by the peacemaker prophet of logic, Surak. Spock would reply that while Surak's pacifist approach was ideal, it is not always practical. He will relate several cases in which Captain Kirk, using stratagem derived from that human game poker and the limited application of force solved problems out on the final frontier time and time again. Spock would point out that the man who boasts of killing Osama bin Laden is in no position to invoke Surak.

Then, giving the Vulcan salute and a command to live long and prosper, he would beam back to the Enterprise.

Sharp-eyed readers will no doubt retort that the New York Times once related a story about how Nimoy met Obama at a party and, in character as Spock, said that it was logical that he should become president. But we have to reference Nimoy's old book. He is not Spock.

Sources: I am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy, Buccaneer Books, 1997

Obama: 'I am Not Spock-Like', Charlie Spiering, Washington Examiner, Dec 23, 2011

Once More, With Feeling, Maureen Dowd, New York Times, May 29, 2010

A Mind-Meld Q&A With Leonard Nimoy, David Itzkoff, New York Times, May 8, 2009