From the left: Obama Never Shed His Arrogance

Obama adviser Ben Rhodes’ memoir, says The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, further proves that “Obama always found us wanting.” After President Trump’s victory, Obama wondered if he wanted too much from the American people, if we were really ready for him. “He’s saying that, sadly, we were not enlightened enough for the momentous changes wrought by the smartest people in the world,” Dowd writes, adding that Obama thinks “We just weren’t ready for his amazing awesomeness.” What Obama never understood, Dowd writes, is that his election was a momentous step in American politics and culture — but that once he became president, he had to govern. Hope is for the future, but when it comes to the present, voters “needed to know, what’s in it for them?”

Foreign desk: Palestinians’ Strategic Blind Spot

President Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem shows the danger in the Palestinian strategy of internationalizing the conflict and relying on the “international community” to do its work for it, explains Haviv Rettig Gur at the Times of Israel. “The only real alternative to internationalization (besides terrorism, of course, which vanishingly few Palestinians still view as a winning strategy) is to meaningfully engage with Israel and Israelis, a step too ideologically and politically painful for any major Palestinian faction to contemplate seriously,” notes Gur. Plus, internationalizing the conflict doesn’t require the Palestinians to give up their dream of undoing Israel’s reestablishment in 1948. As they discovered when Trump moved the embassy, however: This strategy “leaves you vulnerable when those politics change.”

Culture file: Everything’s a Joke to America

Though humorlessness seems to be everywhere, “we are, in fact, living in a time of unprecedented comedy saturation,” claims Ken Jennings at The Daily Beast. “Political candidates now hire comedy writers to pre-write little zingers for their stump speeches and debates. Advertising, a field once kept strictly humorless by scowling Don Draper types, has, since 1960, slowly become such a nonstop barrage of anarchic absurdity and winking irony that the average American now sees 188 funny ads per day.” Technology is the main culprit, as Jennings sees it — the Internet can amplify any joke, and social media, especially Twitter, are built for the punchline. But, he warns, replacing inspirational messages with sarcasm and humor breeds cynicism: “We’re now starting to see some of the effects of our comedy-first culture, and not all are hopeful.”

From the right: CNN Owes NRA Spokesman An Apology

After the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, CNN organized a raucous “town hall” including Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and the NRA’s Dana Loesch. Loesch was treated as the villain and Israel as the hero. But then, recalls Brandon Morse at Red State, “almost as soon as the facts began rolling in afterward, Loesch was vindicated.” The Broward sheriffs had nearly 40 chances to intervene and stop the shooter’s ability to obtain guns prior to the attack. Then we learned deputies stood outside the school while the attack was happening and didn’t enter. And now we’ve found out, Morse writes, that Broward sheriffs “had prevented medical teams from entering after the shooting was done.” Yet “CNN threw innocent people under the bus to prevent the spotlight from going where it needed to go.” The network, concludes Morse, owes Loesch an apology.

Libertarian: Modern Feminism’s Inherent Contradiction

University of Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson’s criticism of feminism’s assault on masculinity has made him a bestselling author — and object of feminists’ unhinged attacks. But, argues Cathy Young at the LA Times, liberals would be better off engaging with Peterson’s central critique: “Despite occasional lip service to the idea that feminism can liberate men too from patriarchal confines, most feminist discourse spends far more time bashing men for trivial transgressions.” Indeed, he has exposed feminist hypocrisy: “Contemporary feminism’s main message to men is not one of equal partnership. Rather, it’s: Repent, abase yourself, and be an obedient feminist ally — and we still won’t trust you.” No wonder Peterson has “found an eager audience.”

— Compiled by Seth Mandel