Obama = Spock

Just how is President Obama like Star Trek's Mr. Spock? Columnists count the ways. For months, they've offered up analogies between Star Trek's nerdy chief science officer and the president, who critics say is similarly too technocratic and unemotional.

• David Paul Kuhn, RealClearPolitics "The public will be listening to Obama's explanations but, perhaps more importantly, it will also be searching for the passion beneath his prose. Spock must find his inner Kirk."

• Seth Borenstein, Associated Press "Obama's Spock-like qualities have started to cause him political problems in real world Washington. Critics see him as too technocratic, too deliberative, too lacking in emotion."

• Maureen Dowd, The New York Times "Commanding his own unwieldy starship of blended species, with Cheney, Limbaugh and other pitiless Borg aliens firing phasers from all sides, Mr. Obama has certainly invoked Mr. Spock’s Vulcan philosophy of 'Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.' And he even recruited some impulsive Rahmulen muscle for his Utopia."

• Ann Althouse "You know, I think what Obama seems to have become, he always was. Shake him all you want, Maureen, but you're like some Star Trek extra (in tights and a tunic) trying to coax heat out of the body of Mr. Spock. I'm afraid these earnest efforts are futile."

• George Stephanopoulos, ABC News "His anger over the tone of the debate and the tactics used by his opponents was palpable. A few sentences from the end, he choked up a bit. No Mr. Spock tonight."

• Trey Ellis, Huffington Post "When I heard that the president of the United States called someone a 'jackass,' I cheered. This is exactly the kind of human, non-Spock-like outburst Obama needs to do much more of to better connect with the vast majority of the American people."

Jed Lewison, Daily Kos "It's not a question of whether Obama's big ears make him look like Dr. Spock, it's not a question of whether he's 'too Chicago' or 'too soft,' it's not a question of whether Nancy Pelosi is moving him too far left or if he thinks the U.S. is a nice African nation, and it certainly isn't a question of whether he's spending too much time looking in the mirror."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Obama--Spock-403