Obama: ‘I loved Spock’

President Obama joined the fans of “Star Trek” actor Leonard Nimoy in mourning the actor’s death on Friday.

“Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy,” he said in a statement. “Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.”

{mosads}“I loved Spock.”

Nimoy was 83, and died of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, The New York Times reported.

He began playing the cooley analytical Spock in the 1960s and the character — an alien outsider among the human crew of the Starship Enterprise — became a pop culture icon. The character of Spock was reintroduced to audiences when the “Star Trek” franchise was rebooted in recent years.

The president has expressed a personal knowledge of “Star Trek” in the past. in 2012, he posed for a photo with “Star Trek” actress Nichelle Nichols while doing the Vulcan salute, a greeting that was popularized by Spock.

Obama also has been frequently compared to Spock in the media, and his description of Nimoy as “cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed” is one Obama’s supporters have used to describe the president.