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Former FBI Director James Comey says he takes President Trump at his word that his firing was over the Russia investigation. USA TODAY

It's hardto find a clearer example of the widening media divide in America than the reactions to James Comey's testimony before the Senate IntelligenceCommittee on Thursday.

While stories and op-eds on the left called the hearing "historic," sayingthe former FBI director made a strong case, the coverage on the right tended to agree with President Trump that the testimony"vindicated" him.Conservative media also gave much more attention to Comey'srevelations about the Clinton email investigation.

Here are some examples of pieces from both sides of the ideological fence the performed well with readers.

This piece in Mother Jones from David Corn summedup themost common takeaways from progressive commentators in the wake of Comey's testimony:

Hereis the bombshell: a former FBI director has said publicly and under oath that the current president of the United States cannot be trusted.

This is unprecedented and highly troubling. Though James Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in May, had the day before disclosed hisprepared testimony chronicling his disturbing interactions with Trump, his dramatic and much-anticipated appearance Thursday morning before the Senate intelligence committee reinforced and expanded the damning indictment Comey presented in his statement. He noted that he believed that Trump had privately directed him to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn that was part of the FBIs ongoing Russia probe. He also testifiedthat he sawTrumps statements to him about the Russia investigation asan order to quash the probe. And he accused the president and the White House of lying.

Corn calledfor "probing Trump's efforts to rig the FBI investigation" and saidComey's testimony casts Trump as "a Nixonesque scoundrel who attempted to abuse his power." But like Comey, he leftthe question of whether the president's conduct was illegal to the special counsel's investigation.

The theme that Comey revealed Trump to be a liar appeared in many pieces for example, The Nation story headlined, "Comey on Trump: Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar" although few said Comey's testimony revealed proof of anything criminal.

"James Comeys public testimony exonerates President Trump of obstruction of justice," wrote Fox News reporter Gregg Jarrett in an opinion piece that echoes the feeling of many conservatives.

To put it simply, hoping that something happens is not a crime. The law demands much more than that. Felony obstruction requires that the person seeking to obstruct a law enforcement investigation act corruptly. The statute specifically defines what that includes: threats, lies, bribes, destruction of documents, and altering or concealing evidence. None of that is alleged by Comey

The National Review editorial board said"the former FBI director painted a deeply unflattering portrait of the president," but adds that "the legal case that Democrats are trying to mount against the president remains far-fetched.

In a piece for Fox News Opinion headlined, "Comey confirms that I'm right and all the Democratic commentators are wrong,"lawyer Alan Dershowitz not himself a conservative, but actually a Democrat agreed.

Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute ...

So lets move on and learn all the facts regarding the Russian efforts to intrude on American elections without that investigation being impeded by frivolous efforts to accuse President Trump of committing a crime by exercising his constitutional authority.

Many from the left were incredulous at Republican politicians and pundits' efforts to defend Trump's actions as described by Comey.

"Just one of our two parties is interested in checking this president's abuse," wroteJamelle Bouie, Slate's chief political correspondent. "What defined Thursdays hearing, in fact, was the degree to which Republicans downplayed obvious examples of bad potentially illegal behavior and sought to exonerate Trump rather than grapple with Comeys damning allegations about the president."

After House Speaker Paul Ryan defended Trump by saying, "The president is new at this," Daily Kossenior political writer Joan McCarter slammed Ryan as "not being fit for his own job." Ryan's dismissal of Trump "is as damning of Ryan as of Trump."

Conservative commentators jumped all over a revelation out of Comey's testimony that was largelyignored by liberals: Comey said former Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked him to call the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server a "matter" instead of an "investigation." The Blaze and other sites saw this as proof Lynch intervened to "downplay" the investigation.

"If there was any obstruction of justice taking place, it would appearthat the Democrats and the Clintons were likely as guilty of it as they claim the Trump administration is," wroteJim Jamitis for RedState.

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Conservatives and liberals saw two different Comey hearings - USA TODAY

Commentators have been hailing this weeks major policy speeches by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan as significant. They arent wrong to do so. The speeches were indeed important, just not for the reasons commonly cited.

In the case of Freelands speech, analysts have largely focused on her polite but clear message to the United States: that Canada must now step forward if Donald Trumps America moves to step back. And on Sajjans address, pundits have emphasized the size of the governments proposed increase in military spending: $14 billion over a decade, marking a 70-per-cent increase over todays spending levels (which is a substantial boost, even accounting for inflation).

These aspects of their speeches are important, but not the real story. The real story here is that the government is finally abandoning Liberal delusions that Canadas role in the world was given power merely by symbolic internationalist rhetoric, unsupported by meaningful strength. The ministers could have simply stood up and announced, The Liberals have been wrong about the ways of world these last 40-some-odd years, and we plan to do better.

The government acts as if renouncing the Liberals soft power philosophies and replacing them with a hard power approach is something required only by present circumstances

They didnt say that, of course. Rather, they acted as if renouncing the Liberals long-held soft power philosophies and replacing them with a hard power approach is something required by circumstances that are just now unfolding. But it isnt. Freeland and Sajjan are absolutely right that it is important for Canada to have a strong military, to stand up for democratic values around the world, to assert its own national interests. But this has been the case for decades. And there have been people saying so in these pages and elsewhere for just as long. It shouldnt have taken Canadas reckoning with Trump or Vladimir Putin or Brexit or climate change to recognize this role, as Freelands speech suggested. We should have embraced a strong military because it is Canadas duty as a country and member of the Western alliance to do so. Our governments (and not only the Liberal ones) have simply ignored this role for too long.

Consider, for instance, one of Freelands more widely cited lines: To rely solely on the U.S. security umbrella would make us a client state Although we have an incredibly good relationship with our American friends and neighbours, such a dependence would not be in Canadas interest. That is why doing our fair share is clearly necessary. While pundits have pointed to these lines as a sign of Canadas newfound recognition that it can no longer depend on the U.S., this statement is in fact remarkable because it is effectively an admission: that the chronic underfunding of the Canadian Armed Forces (dating back to Pierre Trudeau and with only brief exceptions since) has left Canada as exactly what Freeland says an American client state.

The Liberals have effectively admitted that the chronic underfunding of the Canadian Armed Forces has left Canada as exactly what Freeland says an American client state

And this is largely true. Canadas military has been shrinking for decades, both in manpower and capabilities. Its been hurt by chronic understaffing and underfunding and procurement failures. We have become ever-less present on the global stage in times of war and peace while becoming ever more dependent on the U.S. for continental protection. We have deployed too few troops to allied defence engagements and peacekeeping missions, too few planes to patrol our skies, and too few ships to monitor our shorelines. We are virtually defenceless in the Arctic and always have been. That has been a well-known fact for anyone who has bothered to pay attention.

Do not mistake our meaning here. We like much of what Freeland and Sajjan have said. Assuming they follow through on their commitments (which is a considerable assumption), Canada will be the better for it. But not because we have staked out a new, bold place for ourselves in the world, but rather because we will finally be catching up to where we ought always to have been. Not because we are joining new institutions, but because we will finally be pulling our weight at the ones weve long been in.

In effect, the Liberals have slyly admitted that, for decades, Canadas foreign policy has been a disappointing sham. We have talked a good talk on human rights, multilateralism, foreign aid and collective defence. But we have failed to live up to our commitments or maintain the capabilities required to do so. If the Liberals do follow through on their plans, they wont be bringing Canada back. Theyll be fulfilling the obligations our governments have for decades neglected.

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National Post View: The Liberals finally reveal that the Liberal approach to world affairs was wrong all along - National Post

Progressives want education, health care, and housing for everyone. And were the close-mindedones?

Protesters gather outside Republican Congressman Darrell Issas town-hall meeting in San Juan Capistrano, California, on June 3, 2017. (Reuters / Mike Blake)

If I have to read one more article blaming liberal condescension toward the red states and the white working class for the election of Trump, Im moving to Paris, France. These pieces started coming out even before the election and are still pouring down on our heads. Just within the last few weeks, the New Republic had Michael Tomasky deploring elite liberal suspicion of middle America for such red-state practices as churchgoing and gun owning and The New York Times had Joan Williams accusing Democrats of impugning the social honor of working-class whites by talking about them in demeaning and condescending ways, as exemplified by such phrases as flyover states, trailer trash, and plumbers butt. Plumbers butt? That was a new one for me. And thats not even counting the 92,346 feature stories about rural Trump voters and their heartwarming folkways. (I played by the rules, said retired rancher Tom Grady, 66, delving into the Daffodil Diners famous rhubarb pie. Why should I pay for some deadbeats trip to Europe?) Im still waiting for the deep dives into the hearts and minds of Clinton supporterswhat concerns motivated the 94 percent of black women voters who chose her? Is there nothing of interest there? For that matter, why dont we see explorations of the voters who made up the majority of Trumps base, people who are not miners or unemployed factory workers but regular Republicans, most quite well-fixed in life? (I would vote for Satan himself if he promised to cut my taxes, said Bill Thorberg, a 45-year-old dentist in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Im basically just selfish.) There are, after all, only around 75,000 coal miners in the entire country, and by now every one of them has been profiled in the Times.

In her fascinating recent book Strangers in Their Own Land, the brilliant sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild asks readers to climb the empathy wall and really try to understand the worldview of Trump votersas she did, spending over five years getting to know white Southern Louisianians, many of them Cajun, who have extreme free-market, anti-government Tea Party politics although they live in Cancer Alley, an area where the petrochemical industry, abetted by the Republican politicians they voted for, has destroyed nature, their communities and their health. Hochschild has a deep grasp of human complexity, and her subjects come across as lovely people, despite their politics. As she hoped, I came away with a better understanding of how kindly people could vote for cruel policies, and how people who dont think theyre racist actually are so.

But heres my question: Who is telling the Tea Partiers and Trump voters to empathize with the rest of us? Why is it all one way? Hochschilds subjects have plenty of demeaning preconceptions about liberals and blue-statersthat distant land of hippies, feminazis, and freeloaders of all kinds. Nor do they seem to have much interest in climbing the empathy wall, given that they voted for a racist misogynist who wants to throw 11 million people out of the country and ban people from our shores on the basis of religion (as he keeps admitting on Twitter, even as his administration argues in court that Islam has nothing to do with it). Furthermore, they are the ones who won, despite having almost 3 million fewer votes. Thanks to the founding fathers, red-staters have outsize power in both the Senate and the Electoral College, and with great power comes great responsibility. So shouldnt they be trying to figure out the strange polyglot population they now dominate from their strongholds in the South and Midwest? What about their stereotypes? How respectful or empathetic is the belief of millions of Trump voters, as established in polls and surveys, that women are more privileged than men, that increasing racial diversity in America is bad for the country, that the travel ban is necessary for national security? How realistic is the conviction, widespread among Trump supporters, that Hillary Clinton is a murderer, President Obama is a Kenyan communist and secret Muslim, and the plain-red cups that Starbucks uses at Christmastime are an insult to Christians? One of Hochschilds subjects complains that liberal commentators refer to people like him as a redneck. Ive listened to liberal commentators for decades and have never heard one use this word. But say it happened once or twice. Feminazi went straight from Rush Limbaughs mouth to general parlance. One of Hochschilds most charming subjects, a gospel singer and preachers wife, uses it like a normal word. Equating women who want their rights with the genocidal murder of millions? How is that not a vile insult?

Sorry, self-abasing pundits: If you go by actual deeds, liberals and leftists are the ones with empathy.

Im sure I have stereotypical views of people who live in red statesincluding forgetting that, as Tomasky points out, all those places have significant numbers of (churchgoing, gun-owning) liberals. I try not to be prejudicedmost people are pretty nice when you dont push their buttonsbut I probably have my fair share of biases. But so what? What difference does it make if I think believing in the Rapture is nuts, and hunting for pleasure is cruel? So what if I prefer opera to Elvis? What does that have to do with anything important? Empathy and respect are not about kowtowing to someones cultural and social preferences. Theyre about supporting policies that make peoples lives better, whether they share your values, or your tastes, or not.

How much empathy did Louisiana Republicans show when they electedand reelectedBobby Jindal, who, backed by Republican legislators, cut taxes, slashed spending on education, health care, and social programs and gave massive tax breaks to the very petrochemical companies that poisoned Republican voters themselves? In Oklahoma, a growing number of schools are now open only four days a weekvoters, ultimately, made the choice to cut taxes instead of pay for a decent education for the states children. You can go down the most uncontroversial list of social goodshospitals, libraries, schools, clean air and water, treatment for mentally ill people and drug addictsand Republican voters label them Big Government and oppose them. And when the consequences get too big to ignore, as with climate change, they choose to believe whatever nonsense Fox News is promoting that week, as if at least 97 percent of the worlds climate scientists are just elitists who think they know so much. True, by the time the world burns to a crisp, todays voters will mostly be dead, but wheres the empathy for their own grandchildren?

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

Sorry, self-abasing liberal pundits: If you go by actual deeds, liberals and leftists are the ones with empathy. We want everyone to have health care, for example, even those Tea Partiers who in the debate over the Affordable Care Act loudly asserted that people who cant afford treatment should just die. We want everyone to be decently paid for their labor, no matter how low they wear their pantssomehow the party that claims to be the voice of working people has no problem with paying them so little theyre eligible for food stamps, which that same party wants to take away. We want college to be affordable for everyoneeven for the children of parents who didnt start saving for college when the pregnancy test came out positive. We want everyone to be free to worship as they pleaseincluding Muslimseven if we ourselves are nonbelievers.

What should matter in politics is what the government does. Everything else is just flattery, like George H.W. Bushs oft-cited love of pork rinds. Unfortunately, flattery gets you everywhere.

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Lack of Empathy Is Not the Problem - The Nation.

The Liberal government is prepared to adopt some of the Senate's proposed amendments to its citizenship bill, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Friday.

Bill C-6 is designed to repeal many of the previous Conservative government's changes to how people become citizens and how they can lose that status.

Among other things, the legislation would repeal a provision that strips dual citizens of their Canadian status if convicted of terrorism, treason or espionage. It has been applied to one person: Zakaria Amara, convicted for his role in a 2006 terror plot in Toronto.

Far more people lose their citizenship because it was obtained fraudulently, and the Senate wants to amend the bill in order to give those people a chance at a court hearing before their status is stripped away.

Hussen said the government will accept that proposal, albeit with some modifications of its own, including giving the minister the authority to make decisions when an individual requests it.

Hussen's hand was partially forced by a recent Federal Court decision that said people have a right to challenge the revocation of their citizenship, although predecessor John McCallum had earlier suggested he would support the amendment.

"This amendment recognizes the government's commitment to enhancing the citizenship revocation process to strengthen procedural fairness, while ensuring that the integrity of our citizenship program is maintained," Hussen said in a statement.

The government will also accept a Senate recommendation that would make it easier for children to obtain citizenship without a Canadian parent.

But they are rejecting efforts to raise the upper age for citizenship language and knowledge requirements from 54 to 59, saying it's out of step with the goal of making citizenship easier to obtain. The current law requires those between the ages of 14 to 64 to pass those tests; the Liberals want it changed to 18 to 54.

Hussen thanked the Senate for its work making the bill "even stronger and for providing an example of productive collaboration on strengthening important legislation."

The Senate has the choice of accepting the government's decision, rejecting it, or proposing further amendments of its own, which could further delay the legislation.

The bill was originally introduced by former immigration minister John McCallum in 2016 as a follow-through to a Liberal campaign promise to repeal elements of the Conservative law, which in their view created two tiers of citizenship.

The government is also seeking to shorten the length of time someone must be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship, and to allow time spent in Canada prior to becoming a permanent resident to count towards that requirement.

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Liberals' citizenship bill to proceed with some Senate amendments - CBC.ca

Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland is congratulated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and party members after delivering a speech in the House of Commons on Canada's Foreign Policy in Ottawa on Tuesday. Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Having been a teacher, Justin Trudeau knows that when a student has little to say they take twice as long to say it, hoping verbosity will cover their lack of substance.

Politicians are the same. And so it is for Trudeaus government, which, short of significant legislative successes, has been speaking at considerable length this week about its views, values and plans.

Weve had the prime minister and his environment minister up on climate change, the global affairs minister up to talk Canadas role in the world, the defence minister reviewing defence plans, and the justice minister announcing plans to clean up the Criminal Code.

With so much talk, you can be sure nothing has actually happened in Ottawa. A quick check of the Parliamentary register confirms as much.

Were now into month twenty of Liberal majority government and, to date, there have been only 19 bills passed, despite closure being invoked 23 times. This is Parliamentary peanuts, even if a few more sneak into the basket of Royal Assent before the House breaks for the summer.

And so, the endless blah blah from the government.

Why are the Liberals doing this? There are two possibly complementary reasons: Liberal MPs need something to say on the summer BBQ circuit; and the decks are being cleared for the Parliamentary enema called prorogation.

Coming back to a clean slate and maybe even a rebuilt Cabinet (gender-balanced surely) would give the Liberals a chance to recapture the imagination of Canadians. Were only two years out from the next election; it wont be long until voters start looking at what Trudeau has actually accomplished with his governments time in office.

The what it all means speechifying also gives the Parliamentary pundits something to chew on before they embark on their own vacations. Hacks live for this stuff in a way normal Canadians beavering away at their jobs dont.

Which isnt to say some of it hasnt been interesting. How the world copes post-Trump withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change is a huge question. Fortunately, the rest of the world, and the vast majority of businesses too, have decided the answer is to keep calm and carry on.

The broader question of global leadership is also worth a good chin wag. The world needs to agree to a plan to cope while the United States is temporarily held hostage by the vulgar tweeting toddler with skin so thin its amazing hes not a pestilent puddle under the Oval Office desk. The stakes are high: Canada will undoubtedly bear the brunt of Trumps ignorance, insolence and insouciance, sitting as we do right on top of him, dominating him with our virtue and universally loved leader. This weeks bromance revival between Trudeau and Barack Obama in Montreal was but the cherry on top.

(And, while were at it, yes, Canada should spend more on its armed forces, too. )

But heres the thing: All of the jaw-jaw wont matter without an engaged United States on board when the time comes to fight the war-war, whether thats on trade, peace and security or, to a lesser extent, climate. The world wont be as the West wishes it without an engaged United States of America. There isnt a speech that can fix the current mess to our south, or the time for a new global architecture to be built from scratch, Bretton Woods-style.

The Trudeau government knows this, which is why its doing the critically important work of reaching out to sub-national U.S. governments and maintaining strong relationships in Congress. This is what, if anything, will shield us from the worst of Trump; our relationship needs to be kept alive until the cancer is rooted out. And its also important that Trudeau move in lock-step with leaders such as Angela Merkel, who lives in an even more complicated and dangerous neighbourhood that Canada without the American umbrella. The upcoming G20 in Germany is sure to be a riot, what with Trump likely to be suffering from fresh tales of Russian woe.

(You see how the Liberal gambit works? I could talk about this all day.)

Returning home, this weeks speeches buy time but they dont obviate the need for answers. The Liberals will undoubtedly work on solutions, but they will not be as solid as those of the last 70 years.

A smart move/cunning ploy would be for Liberals to socialize the Trump problem and publicly draft in the Conservatives to suggest answers. Here, the Liberals could draw on existing Conservative networks, both in Congress and outside. For example, Stephen Harper met this week with former U.S. president George W. Bush, and Rona Ambrose is set to take up a role in Washington, D.C., with the Wilson Center.

This isnt the time for classroom tricks. Canadians will be grading on deeds, not words.

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and was director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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MacDougall: No matter how much Trudeau and Liberals yammer on, they can't solve Trump - Ottawa Citizen