Obama at the Gridiron: Revenge of the Vulcan?

For a guy who gave away the secret of his Trek cred even before this famous pose, President Obama sure took a lot of heat for his Trek/Wars mixup of a "Vulcan mind trick" last week. Trouble is, it came from supposedly serious pundits, not just the late-night laffmeisters. And we already know he knows full well the difference.

So now the president gets his revenge, or a chance to explain, courtesy of Saturday night's annual Gridiron Dinner roast of and by journalists in D.C. It's never televised, though some transcripts of the evening have nonetheless surfaced :

"I’ve been trying to explain this situation to the American people, but clearly I am not perfect," Obama says at one point in his monologue. "After a very public mix-up last week, my communications team has provided me with an easy way to distinguish between Star Trek and Star Wars." (Laughter.) "Spock is what Maureen Dowd calls me.  Darth Vader is what [GOP Speaker] John Boehner calls me."

And then to close—reclaiming by mocking his inner Trekkie, in public, once again:

"I want to thank everybody for just a wonderful evening … And in the words of one of my favorite Star Trek characters, Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise: ‘May the force be with you.’ ”

Don't forget—we can thank John Hodgman for a lot of this initial investigative D.C. Trek work on camera:

White House to Empire wannabes: Geek snark wins out

Sure, it's cross-franchise, but this is too good to pass up, even in Trekland:

And just what tone you'd expect, too, from the Administration of our first Trekkie President (although everyone knows he's ready to take on a bat'leth any time):

For starters, Pawl Shawcross—of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget—actually titled the reponse to this "We The People" online petition of 35,000 signatures as...

 ..."This Isn't The Petition Response You're Looking For" ...

Death Star Petition Gets White House Rebuff

Via Ethan Klapper/ HuffPo...

The White House responded Friday night to a petition on its website urging construction of a Death Star for job creation and national defense purposes by 2016.  ...

—The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
 

—The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
 

—Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

I'm told this reply is being sent on all hailing frequencies and linguacode ...

"Poll: Obama's Trekkieness not extend to Klingon love?"

Well, that's the idea behind these graphic titles for an interview regarding this amazing National Geographic piece of journalism ...

Obama Better Suited To Fight Aliens, According To Poll

... titles put up for the story, and interview with a comedy writer, on the normally straight-laced Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word news show on MSNBC:

Do you think the Klingons are the most-mainstream Trek aliens a news show should use here for the mundanes? The Borg still have a ways to go?

OK: Official geekdom is... official (UPDATED)

Well, that's it. I'm waiting for hell to freeze over now.

Real video and pics to come ASAP, but I just witnessed it on live cable: John "I'm a PC"/"Resident Expert" Hodgman concludes his wry jokefest on the D.C. "Nerds' Takeover" before the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner by turning to President Obama two seats away--yep, the Vulcan-in-Chief, according to some mainstream pundits—and offering, "You have been, and always shall be, my friend."

Complete with the you-know what gesture.

It will be all over the tube and Tubes in minutes, I know.

What's doubly funny is, I just saw Nick Meyer earlier today. He must be a proud quotee.

UPDATE: I'm slow, but yep—it's a sensation. Along with (shhhh) the true subtext of Hodgman's nerd/jock subtext of bona fides and second-guessing among the faithful.

Did Obama just have a 'Galileo Seven' moment?

You guys know it is not the intent of Trekland to inject politics unduly into these diatribes ... unless of course it's a treatise on the New Essentialists or the Terra Primers, or even the anti-Coridan bloc....

But did Obama just meet his Taurus II?

SPOCK: Strange. Step by step I have done the correct and logical thing...

MCCOY: And brought our furry friends down on our necks.

SPOCK: Yes. I seem to have miscalculated regarding them ... inculcated resentment on your part.

Aside from the cheesy, too-easy rhyme of "Barack" and "Spock"... and recalling that it's no secret the President is a Trekkie... an interesting thought crossed my mind this week, amid the spectacle of the President changing tone to sell his stimulus package in the Senate against withering attacks by Republicans and "10-to-1" calls against it by those whipped up by conservative talk radio. Like Spock on his first command with a shuttlecraft crew in "The Galileo Seven," the president seemed content that a rational, unconcerned trust in the facts and deductive logic of history would be quite enough to rationally carry the day.

Then the wall of fear and emotion set in, and quicker'n Bones could say, "It'll take more than logic to get us out of this," the president pivoted back into political-reality retorts and metaphors that got his point across. It's as if the lightbulb went off that "making the correct command decision, in the logical order" was not enough.

KIRK: You mean, you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst.

Don't worry. I'm not going overboard with any "Obama is a Vulcan" meme.

Spock never did hoops.