MR. SPOCK OVER CAPTAIN KIRK?

Mr. Spock was half-human and you could always tell he was struggling to control his feelings in order to save the Enterprise. He was never motivated by personal gain.

David Brooks (Captain Kirk?) Vs. Al Gore (Mr. Spock?) – Score One For Gore!
Benjamin R. Barber, May 29, 2007 (Huffington Post)
Gore with Richard Branson
WHO
Global warming guru, former Vice President and Presidential candidate Al Gore, conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks

WHAT
Brooks wrote an op-ed piece which author Barber claims is a model for how Republicans will attack Gore if he runs for and wins the Democratic nomination for President.

WHEN
The Brooks piece appeared May 22. It was about Gore’s theoretical 2008 presidential candidacy.

WHERE
The Brooks piece was in the NY Times.

WHY
- Gore’s Oscar-winning film about climate change, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and his passionate environmental advocacy has engenedered new popularity.
- Brooks calls Gore a "Vulcan Utopian" and an unemotional "Mr. Spock" in contrast to President Bush’s Captain Kirk.

QUOTES
- Barber: “…the real problem is Gore has this "bizarre" rationalist view of human nature that makes a distinction between lower and higher parts of our brains even though "the reality is that there is no such neat distinction." Actually, David, it was folks like Christ and then Sigmund Freud who preferred this view about higher and lower parts of human nature, and I don't think either was exactly an Enlightenment rationalist…”

- Barber: “…Well, David…We've spent six years witnessing the "dark thickets of human nature" in action in an administration that has made a fetish of ignoring reason, science and the Enlightenment. So if you want to make the '08 race a choice between reason and stupidity, between science and superstition and between Enlightenment and the "dark thickets of human nature," let's do it…”
- Barber: “…I will be happy to have the "Vulcan Utopian" in my corner -- though I agree with you Gore is partial to dispassionately "exchanging facts" in order to "arrive at logical conclusions." Something you apparently disparage. And something for which President Bush and those Republicans who still admire him have shown little interest and still less talent…I'll bet my bottom dollar on Mr. Spock…most Americans are ready for policies rooted in fact rather than fiction, and will welcome a President capable of reaching "logical conclusions" and thus be thrilled to elect Al Gore as President…”