Obama: Washington or Spock?

I was reading a New York Times review of a new book about our first president ("Inventing George Washington" by By Edward G. Lengel) when I came across an interesting passage. I'll get to that in a moment. The reviewer, Michiko Kakutani, doesn't like the book. It is "a haphazard production, lacking the lucid cogency" of other works about Washington, he writes. One of those better works is Joseph J. Ellis’s 2004 character study, “His Excellency.” In it (the passage that caught my eye), Kakutani says Ellis depicts Washington "as a man whose most notable attributes were stamina, self-control and a dogged ability to learn from his mistakes." Intriguing. Those attributes, I think, accurately depict another American president, the current one: Barack Obama. No, I'm not comparing Obama to Washington. The better comparison is to Star Trek's Mr. Spock (who also has Washington-like traits). To the attributes of stamina, self-control and learning from mistakes, I would add Vulcan logic and pragmatism. As Spock or Obama would say, arching an eyebrow, "fascinating."