We may be heading for a general and fundamental impasse—and it’s not likely to yield to public pressure for compromise.

In The New York Times, Maureen Dowd bangs a persistent drum about Barack Obama as Mr. Spock, the über-rational anti-politician with “a revulsion for playing the game”—“the flattering, schmoozing, and ring-kissing needed to coax Congress into doing what he wants.” The complaint has morphed into a meme that offers a simple way through: presumably Obama-the-back-slapper would soon be signing bills left and right.

And like a lot of simple explanations, it’s tempting; it resonates with prevailing perceptions and preconceptions; and at least in Dowd’s prose, it’s interesting and diverting.