Obama, Spock? Palin, Kirk? Kobayashi Maru!

Leadership: If Barack Obama is Spock, Sarah Palin is Kirk

by Leigh Scott

When Sarah Palin resigned a few weeks ago every blogger with a keyboard chimed in on it. I didn’t want to be late in the game with a Sarah Palin blog, so I put this blog in the old hard drive of justice, right next to my Buffy the Vampire fan fiction and an un-produced screenplay about the Braves leaving Milwaukee.

Then I saw one of my childhood idols, Bill Shatner goofing on Sarah Palin. At last, my geeked out political observation had new relevance! Apple “C.” Apple “V.” Send to Big Hollywood.

We were treated to some really lame comparisons between Obama and Mr. Spock a few months back. Let’s ignore the obvious fact; that Mr. Spock is and always was the #2 guy. The Captain’s chair rightfully belonged to Kirk. Spock lacks the passion and empathy to be a leader. Trying to make a flattering comparison between the leader of the free world and a legendary sidekick seems like a non-starter.

No, let’s focus on the fact that Obama does not follow the Vulcan path. The path of logic. His demeanor may be calm, cool, and unemotional, but his thought process is driven by raw emotion. He represents decades of grievance education, America bashing, and misplaced empathy. There is nothing logical about the man. Exhibit A is the “stimulus plan.”

So with the whole Obama is Spock meme D.O.A. I went searching for another apt Sci-Fi/Politics metaphor. Let’s see, George W. Bush is Luke Skywalker? Cheney is Paul Atredies? Donald Rumsfeld is Optimus Prime? Joe Biden is a Tribble?

Then, as Sarah Palin announced her resignation, it hit me. Sarah Palin is Captain Kirk. Why? Because she just passed the Kobayashi Maru.

For those of you who don’t know what the Kobayashi Maru is, let me explain. In the Star Trek universe it is an unwinnable test. It’s creator, Mr. Spock, designed it to test how Starfleet captains deal with failure and death. There is no right way to successfully navigate through it.

But cadet James Tiberius Kirk found a way to beat it. He rigged the computer simulation to allow him to complete the mission without killing his crew. Starfleet accused him of cheating, but Kirk’s response was simple, eloquent, and very revealing. “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario. I don’t like to lose.” Kirk didn’t change the strategy. He changed the rules.

Since Sarah Palin burst onto the national scene she has been savaged. The media, the Left, the Right, the Middle, you name it. People either love her or hate her. In the media it seems people love to hate her. The “elites” on both sides of the aisle hate the populism she represents. Traditional feminists hate the fact that she has both a family and a career; something that their paradigm teaches is impossible. Her future rivals hate her because she isn’t a typical politician. Her authenticity makes Mike Huckabee look about as real as the Guinea Pigs in “G-Force”.

Palin was faced with her own Kobayashi Maru. How could she effectively govern the state of Alaska while facing ridiculous ethics charges and the scrutiny of the national media? How could she increase her exposure in the lower 48 while staying true to the people in Alaska who elected her? Perhaps if the wingnuts in Alaska didn’t stalk her with silly lawsuits she would have simply put her larger ambitions on the back burner and continued to do her job as governor. But it wasn’t meant to be. She was perfectly set up to fail. Her popularity in Alaska would decline. The national media would point to it as an indicator of her overall effectiveness. The Klingons…I mean the left, would have won.

But Palin defied them. She changed not her strategy, but the very rules. She resigned her position, turning the state over to her loyal Lieutenant Governor to continue the plans and policies she put into motion. Like any good story, it was an unexpected twist, yet when viewed in retrospect it was the only way it could play out.

The notion that a candidate with scant command of policy, who either lacks experience or didn’t complete the duties of their elected position, is doomed to failure doesn’t take into account a little thing I call history. In 2008 this nation elected a President who spent the majority of his Senate term campaigning for his next gig. I only wish he had the class, respect, and decency for and towards his constituents to resign. And while Palin may lack the depth of foreign policy knowledge, that say a Joe Biden has (yes, I just did that cough/laugh thing), she has a damned good grasp of energy policy. According to a lot of folks that energy thing is a big deal. Sarah Palin understands that people should have more freedoms. Government should be small. Taxes should be low. I understand that too. Neither of us has a Doctorate in Economics. I think that’s a good thing.

For all his talk of being different, representing “hope,” and bringing “change” Obama has turned out to be quite the bore. He is the consummate insider, a recycler of old ideas and failed policies. People wanted to beam up to the starship and explore strange new worlds. We wanted to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before. Obama is in the wrong franchise. He and crazy Doc Brown, I mean Joe Biden, gassed up the DeLorean and took us back in time. To 1976.

Palin passed the Kobayashi Maru. She is qualified to command the ship. She has all the qualities we want in a captain; valor, principals, vision and most of all, the ability to change the rules.

Will Palin be a candidate in 2012? Will she run for Senate? Will she be a third party spoiler? Who knows? Maybe she should just enjoy the spoils that are the dividends of her hard work. People get paid millions of bucks because their coffee at McDonald’s is too hot, I think she’s entitled to a book deal and a TV show after having her entire family slandered by a bunch of elitist vampires. But something tells me she won’t just become the “White Oprah.” People like Kirk and Palin don’t retreat. They have an innate craving for responsibility and adventure as well as a desire to help their fellow man.

Go ahead. Write her off. Make a joke out of her. Be my guest. But that would be about as smart as marooning Captain Kirk on Seti Alpha V.

We all know how well that worked out for Khan don’t we?