WASHINGTON — He shows a fascination with science, an all-too deliberate decision-making demeanor, an adherence to logic and some pretty, ahem, prominent ears.
They all add up to a quite logical conclusion, at least for “Star Trek” fans: Barack Obama is Washington’s Mr. Spock, the chief science officer for the ship of state.
“I guess it’s somewhat unusual for a politician to be so precise, logical, in his thought process,” actor Leonard Nimoy, who has portrayed Spock for more than 40 years on television and in movies, wrote in an e-mail. “The comparison to Spock is, in my opinion, a compliment to him and to the character.”
Obama’s Spock-like qualities, however, have started to cause him political problems in real-world Washington. Critics see him as too technocratic, too deliberative, too lacking in emotion.
It’s the science content of the presidential agenda that have the geeks insisting he’s gone where no nerd has gone before.
Obama is known to relish the ability to call smart people, especially scientists, to come to the White House to talk about their fields. The more obscure and complicated the field, the better to feed the inner science geek.
Last week, the president announced that the White House would hold an annual science fair as part of a $260 million private push to improve math and science education.
One October evening, 20 telescopes and an inflatable dome with a three-dimensional tour of the universe were set up on the White House lawn. The occasion was a star party for 150 middle-schoolers that also showcased moon rocks, a couple of astronauts, several astronomers and even two science teachers dressed as Isaac Newton and Galileo.
Also in October, Obama gave medals to a dozen scientists, toured a lab at the bastion of science-and-technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and visited a solar energy manufacturing plant in Florida.
“This is kinda cool,” Obama told reporters as he wandered through an MIT energy lab demonstration.
In his first 10 months in office, the president made more science-oriented trips than military ones. The White House even turned the annual Easter egg roll into a makeshift science lesson by asking experts to set up a science of eggs exhibit, complete with microscopes.
While some science policy experts don’t quite see the similarities between the president and the fictional Vulcan from television and movies, “Star Trek” experts do.
Nimoy said he ran into Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign in a Los Angeles hotel: “When he arrived and saw me he said, ‘They told me you were here.’ And gave me the split fingered Vulcan sign.”
Roberto Orci, the screenwriter and producer behind the latest “Star Trek” movie, said Obama “has a Spock-like aura about him: calm in the face of great adversity and looking for a logical middle ground.” Obama, himself a big “Star Trek” fan, screened the movie at the White House during its opening weekend.
“We knew he was a Trekkie,” Orci said in a telephone interview. He said he watches the White House regularly for insight on the Spock character.
“To have a case study like that on the news every night makes my job a lot easier,” he said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
