Spock in the White House

A week into Barack Obama’s presidency comparisons abound concerning his personal and political gifts. Is he a rock star, or too cerebral for the sort of crowd-diving, one-with-the-audience intimacy that riles fans to amplified hysteria? Or is he a musician, yes, but more of a cool jazz artist who maintains an appropriate distance from his listeners while at the same providing a (false) sense of comfort for his admirers to absorb? Or is he a messianic figure who elevates our better instincts and unites the races, forever banishing the tragedy of human nature – its affairs with cowardice, its comfort with indifference, its passivity before evil – allowing us to march forward to paradise on earth? Or, finally, is he all of these things, a post-partisan president – a man who refuses to let eloquence devolve into mere rhetoric – and brings so many Clintons and conservatives into his ever expanding arms so we can make the world sing in perfect harmony?

The short answer is: No. Barack Obama is neither a rocker nor a cult leader, though his supporters treat him like the latter while giving him all the adulation (and then some) of the former.

He is, instead, Spock, the famed “Star Trek” character who makes supreme intellect a virtue and emotion both a terrible weakness and vestige of his human lineage – a handicap in the pursuit of reason. How else to explain President Obama’s inaugural address and his belief that “the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.” This sentiment is the very essence of Spock, the equivalent of a private journal entry read aloud for billions in real time, the resignation of a logician who must abandon the purity of his laboratory to rescue an ungrateful citizenry.

And yet, Spock is not the captain of “Star Trek’s” fabled vessel, the USS Enterprise. Why? Because a Captain, even a melodramatic hero like the kind given voice (and pauses, and . . . pauses) by William Shatner, is emotional — sometimes incredibly so. Spock can assess a situation, tabulate the odds of enemy retreat, surmise an adversary’s weakness and discuss the most suitable terms of surrender, but he permanently remains unable to detect a sense of spirit and soul and righteous anger that makes, say, a Kansan oppose slavery or a Kenyan fight a military coup. For these heroes are erratic and thus the dangerous people Spock must render harmless with his Vulcan nerve pinch. (A few words to all single women: I am not a “Trekkie,” do not live with my mother and have never tried – and will never seek – to build a female companion out of spare parts and old circuit boards.)

Because we are human, a concession President Obama indulges with his megawatt smile, we can experience both extraordinary tragedy and Hope (The One, All Rights Reserved). The two are impossible without even an ember of anger or from allowing emotion to overcome reason and summon defiance. For there is no transcending human nature – there is no spiritual awakening from the lines of tribe – without first feeling the gamut of human nature.

We now have Spock in the White House, his oversized captain’s chair within reach of issuing every order except one: presidential anger. Until President Obama discovers his own sincere but controlled fury, he will remain the professor-as-president, a rationalist without an ounce of necessary emotion. To further mix sci-fi metaphors and earn the enmity of millions worldwide, we can’t afford a president who is Spock in a world where Darth Vader lives.