WASHINGTON — Get ready for the geek-in-chief.
President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can’t part with his BlackBerry and once flashed Leonard “Mr. Spock” Nimoy the Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” sign.
That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama’s nerdier fans that he’ll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that’s got them as excited as a Tribble around a Klingon.
Obama is good at “repressing his inner geek, but you can tell it’s there,” especially when he goes into nuanced explanations of technical matters, said Benjamin Nugent, author of the book “American Nerd: The Story of My People.”
Others see only some geek qualities, qualifying the president-elect as merely “nerd-adjacent.” After all, he’s an athlete, some experts demur. But there’s enough for geeks to celebrate.
Psychology professor Larry Welkowitz of Keene State College in New Hampshire hopefully speculated that there’s a shift in what’s cool and that “smart can be in.”
His old college friends give the geek idea a split vote.
Margot Mifflin, a journalism professor in New York, said she saw no geeky signs in Obama at Occidental College in California. Amiekoleh Kimbrew Usafi recalled it differently.
“He’s a geek because he was smart,” Usafi said, noting that Occidental was a geeky school. “There were a lot of girls that liked him because he was cute, but he kept his head in the direction he was going in.”
So a quick geek cultural check for Obama:
• Technology. Click that icon. He’s the candidate who tried to announce his vice presidential pick by text message and embraced Facebook as a campaign tool. He loves his BlackBerry and talks of a chief technology officer for the nation.
• Comic books. As a kid, Obama collected Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. His Senate website used to have a photo of him posing in front of a Superman statue.
• TV’s “Star Trek.” Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock in the series, said Obama flashed him the split four-fingered Vulcan salute when the two crossed paths last year. In May in Des Moines, Iowa, Newsweek caught Obama teasing wife Michelle about her belt buckle, saying it was studded with Star Trek-powering “dilithium crystals.” As he laughed at his joke, Michelle Obama rolled her eyes, as geek wives often do.
Matt Blum, a software engineer and contributor to the GeekDad blog, said Obama qualifies as the first geek-in- chief because George W. Bush was too much a cheerleader and Bill Clinton too wonky and not technological enough.
