By Eric J Baker
Election night 2008: Obama's spaceship arrives with great fanfare
WASHINGTON DC – President Sparak Obama, the first Vulcan-American ever elected president, told ABC’s Barbara Walters today that he is proud to have followed Starfleet Federation’s prime directive, which is to avoid influencing events on any planet with indigenous life, including Earth. The President, who was born here but spent part of his youth at the Vulcan Academy, says his primary responsibility as an interplanetary representative is to monitor situations.
“Take the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan or the civil war in Libya,” Obama told Walters. “I have been observing both situations with intellectual curiosity from a great distance. Though, in truth, I’ve also been standing by at the ready, which is slightly bending the rules.”
During the half-hour interview that aired nationally on ABC affiliates at 7 p.m. eastern time this evening, the President said he strongly believes in democracy as a philosophical concept. When Walters asked if it was then tough for him to watch the rebels in Libya being crushed by dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, he replied, “It certainly is an interesting addition to Earth’s historical record.”
Voices on all sides of the political spectrum have criticized the President at various times in his two-and-a-half years in office for his seemingly detached demeanor in the face of national and international crises. During the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico last year, which dragged on for months, Obama was roundly panned for saying, “Oil is a natural, organic material. I fail to see why its presence is so alarming.”
One area of public policy where the President has been more active is health care reform, with his efforts culminating in a bill last year meant to overhaul the nation’s system of dispensing medical care to its citizens. During last January’s State of the Union address, Obama said, “It is illogical to resist expanded access to health care,” in the hopes of heading off cries from conservatives that at least some aspects of the law are unconstitutional.
The President has also been dogged by a small but vocal group of critics who claim he was not born on this planet and are demanding proof he is actually half human. Known as the “Earther” movement, few in Washington or in the news media take them seriously, but their persistent accusations are just one more distraction for a busy leader who vowed on national TV tonight to monitor, observe, and stand by with renewed vigor entering the 2012 election season.
When reached for comment on this article, President Obama said, “The metaphor in your fourth paragraph, ‘voices on all sides of the political spectrum,’ does not hold up to semantic scrutiny. A spectrum, being light rather than a dimensional object or a representation of such, does not have sides.”
THE ANVIL 