From the right: Bill Clinton Paved the Way for Trump

Not only are liberals suddenly in favor of a tough stand against Russia and vehemently opposed to tariffs, they’re now “personally invested in holding a lecherous president accountable for his lies and personal peccadilloes,” observes The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis. Which, obviously, brings to mind Bill Clinton. In the “Me Too” era, he notes, “we are more sensitive to questions about power — as well as the appropriateness of a President of the United States using that aura to attract a young intern.” Which is why liberals back then “were wrong when they effectively argued that character doesn’t matter.” Today, “the political parties have changed uniforms and adopted each other’s arguments.” But for “intellectually honest observers,” the truth is that a president’s character should matter.

From the left: Dems Taking Latino Voters for Granted

President Trump’s immigration policies and the botched response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico should all be helping Democrats win over Latino voters, suggests Adrian Carrasquillo at The New Republic. Yet “Democratic candidates are underperforming in key Hispanic districts.” You’d think this would “spur Democratic leaders . . . to redouble their efforts to engage Latinos, organizationally and financially. But it hasn’t happened.” This, even though “the money and the machinery is there.” But none of the money “has been earmarked exclusively for a major new initiative to reach Latinos.” Increasingly, he notes, “Latino outreach efforts are folded into broader plans to engage black voters and other minorities.” However, as one Latino activist says: “If we’re not invited to the party, we’re not coming.”

Mathematician: Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and those at Google are “monumentally screwed,” asserts Cathy O’Neil at Bloomberg, because “they have no idea how to tame the monster they have created.” Now they’re being asked to confront those who “spread lies, paranoia, bigotry and straight-up hate.” Problem is, “Algorithms can’t comprehend truth,” which leaves no option but “hiring humans to filter everything” — which is “censorship” and “expensive,” too. So “there’s nothing they can do except apologize, turn off their big machines and walk away.” Because while “they all started out wanting to make the world a better place using cool technology,” they’re being forced to deal with “all of this democracy and public responsibility stuff,” which they “don’t have the chops to handle.”

Security desk: How to Fix the Intelligence Community

The US intel community has “performed poorly for decades” and become hopelessly “corrupt,” says Michael Ledeen at PJ Media. As far back as the Reagan era, the CIA “grossly overestimated the economic strength and durability of the Soviet empire” and “underestimated Soviet military power.” The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan “concluded that the only way to get a good intelligence community was to shut down the current CIA and start all over again with entirely (and fewer) new people.” Think tanks can provide analysis, while much clandestine work can be carried out by the military. Anyone tackling the job, he says, “would require strong political support from the executive branch, a new generation of congressional leaders, better judges than we seem to have at the moment and true secrecy.”

Conservative: Why Has Left Abandoned Middle Class?

Democrats were once known as the party of “rural families, union members and the white working class,” recalls the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Tim Morris. Nowadays, they’re “associated with the coastal elites, nouveau socialists, the ‘resistance’ and all manner of identity politics.” Plus, they’ve “turned their backs on the voters who once lifted them to consistent congressional majorities and occasionally into the White House.” When Hillary Clinton’s aides told her that “people no longer wanted to be called middle class,” all she saw was “a linguistic challenge.” But her party had “failed to stop the decline in working-class wages or provide much hope for economic security in the future.” And today’s Democrats still don’t understand “how deeply the resentment is rooted.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann