Tomorrow, the Senate is scheduled to vote to close debate on the nomination of Jesse Furman as a federal district court judge in New York. This is a worthy nomination. Furman, who is not yet 40 years old, has spent his professional life in public service as a judicial clerk, prosecutor, and Justice Department official. What makes his service all the more exceptional is that he has performed in worthy fashion for judges conservative (Michael Mukasey), liberal (Jose Cabranes), and liberal-posing-as-conservative (David Souter). Over the past decade, he has worked two stints as a federal prosecutor in New York with a special focus on terrorism and narcotics trafficking. And though he was nominated for his position by Barack Obama, he worked for nearly two years for Michael Mukasey as a senior official in the Justice Department under George W. Bush. I’ve known Furman for four years, and in that time we have had substantive conversations about the law in which I have found him terrifically knowledgeable, entirely respectful of views that differ from his, and utterly without an axe to grind. There was some concern expressed during a confirmation hearing about an article he wrote for the Harvard Crimson when he was all of 18 years old in which he smart-assed the National Rifle Association. I would genuinely hope and expect that serious members of the United States Senate would not withhold their support from about as good a nominee as a Republican could hope for from Barack Obama based on an immature intellectual pecadillo. (I shudder to think of what I wrote at 18.) I don’t think voting for Jesse Furman should give any Republican in the Senate a moment’s pause.
Contentions
May 2012
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Articles
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The Jigsaw Puzzle & the Chessboard
Henry R. NauThe making and unmaking of foreign policy in the age of Obama.
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What the Evangelicals Give the Jews
Michael MedvedThe true, and hidden, virtue of a controversial relationship.
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Three Days that Shook ObamaCare
Tevi Troy -
The War Obama Wanted
Alana GoodmanHow Democrats got the better of Republicans on contraception vs. religious liberty.
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Ryan's Hope
James PethokoukisAre the politics changing when it comes to reining in Medicare?
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Capital Offense
Omri Ceren -
Eisenhower and the End of Greatness
Michael J. LewisFrank Gehry's design doesn't know how to convey a singular truth.
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Deviated: A Memoir
Jesse KellermanA cautionary tale from the brave new world of health-care coverage.
Politics & Ideas
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Class Dismissed
Jeff JacobyA review of Jonathan D. Sarna's "When General Grant Expelled the Jews"
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The Closing of the American Nietzsche
Charles M. StangA review of Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen's "American Nietzsche"
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In Tropes They Trust
Jonathan Neumann -
Prudishness Lost
Peter Lopatin
Culture & Civilization
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Beloved by Whom?
D.G. Myers -
The Incredible Shrinking Conductor
Terry Teachout -
Roth’s Complaint
William GiraldiA review of "Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters," edited and translated by Michael Hofmann
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The Game Change Game
Andrew Ferguson
John Podhoretz
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Culture Warrior in Chief
John Podhoretz
Threat Assessment
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The Iran Leakfest
Jonathan S. Tobin
Letters
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Taking the Jewish Vote for Granted
Our ReadersLetters in response to Jonathan S. Tobin's “Jews, Money, and 2012"
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Bickel and Judicial Restraint
Our ReadersLetters in response to Adam J. White's "The Lost Greatness of Alexander Bickel"
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Objectivity and the Haredim
Our ReadersLetters in response to Mati Wagner's "The Ultra-Orthodox on the Warpath"
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What About the Urban Poor?
Our ReadersLetters in response to Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan's "American Mobility"
Enter Laughing
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