President Obama spoke at a journalism awards dinner on March 28, and the former professor did not waste the opportunity to lecture the media on its coverage of the 2016 campaign.
Said coverage was not, like so many other things about the United States and the world, to the president's satisfaction.
"The electorate would be better served if we didn’t focus so much on the he-said-she-said back and forth of our politics, because, while fairness is the hallmark of good journalism, a false equivalency all too often these days can be a fatal flaw," Obama said. "If I say the world is round and someone else says its flat, that’s worth reporting. But you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that seems to support that the world is round."
The president’s holier-than-thou attitude, which members of the press did not appreciate due to Obama's poor record on transparency, is typical of his public addresses.
Obama scolded reporters for interrupting him too much, asking questions about Iran that were not to his satisfaction, and asking him questions on the way to a science fair.
He scolded the country about its reaction to tragedies, snapping after the massacre in Oregon last October that "our thoughts and prayers are not enough."
He lectured Christians about the Crusades, which occurred many centuries ago, reminding them that their co-religionists once "committed terrible acts in the name of Christ," while also stating that the Islamic State terrorist group "is not Islamic."
He berated the Supreme Court before a Joint Session of Congress about its Citizens United decision, while insisting he did so "with all due deference to separation of powers."
He used his comic routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner to blast Republicans for not acting on climate change, assailing Sen. Jim Inhofe for his snowball toss in Congress.
He chided Iranian hardliners who were making his nuclear deal look bad, saying that "chanting death to America does not create jobs."
Even Democrats have not escaped the president's frequent tongue-lashings. When members of his party deserted him on free trade last year, Obama said they were "just wrong."
The president certainly likes to lecture Benjamin Netanyahu, at one point relaying to the prime minister that he didn't need Israeli security concerns explained to him because he was so very smart.
Goldberg tells us about one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s visits to the States. "The Israeli prime minister launched into something of a lecture about the dangers of the brutal region in which he lives, and Obama felt that Netanyahu was behaving in a condescending fashion, and was also avoiding the subject at hand: peace negotiations." So Obama interrupted him. "Bibi, you have to understand something," Obama said. "I’m the African-American son of a single mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White House. I managed to get elected president of the United States. You think I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but I do."
Perhaps most telling was his announcement of executive actions on gun control last year. When he announced his unilateral efforts to chip away at the Second Amendment, Obama assured the country that his academic background had taught him everything he needed to know about the right to bear arms.
"I taught constitutional law. I know a little bit about this," Obama said.