menashi
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""></font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Trump’s worst judicial nominees yet, Steven Menashi, was just voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a straight party-line vote.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What’s worse, Judiciary Committee Chair – and infamous Trump lackey – Lindsey Graham rammed Menashi through committee right on the heels of a New York Times report that, when he was serving as Sec. Betsy DeVos’s right-hand man at the Dept. of Education, <strong style="">Menashi helped construct an elaborate and ILLEGAL scheme to deny debt relief for thousands of students swindled by a for-profit college!</strong></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The full Senate is set to vote on Menashi’s confirmation next week and we’re pulling out all the stops until then to defeat him on the Senate floor – including a rapid response video highlighting his role in the student debt scandal!</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But we need to raise another <strike>$12,705</strike> $5,979 in the next <strike>48</strike> 24 hours to keep our campaign to stop Menashi going through the Senate vote.</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><strong><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://act.pfaw.org/donate/stop_menashi/?prefill=1&first_name=Pat&last_name=McKercher&address1=&address2=&city=San%20Jose&state=CA&zip=95112&email=patmck13%40yahoo.com&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fr&utm_campaign=menashi&t=4&akid=12299%2E2556770%2E8G9zVd" style=""><u><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will you chip in anything you can right now to STOP the confirmation of right-wing extremist Steven Menashi to a lifetime seat on one of our nation’s most powerful courts?</font></u></a></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi, currently a White House lawyer, was handpicked by Trump as a nominee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s the court that just recently delivered a blow to Trump's attempt to shield his tax records from criminal investigations taking place in New York.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s no wonder that Trump wants a far-right hack like Menashi on the court overseeing a jurisdiction so important to the president’s own personal interests. But U.S. senators have no business playing along with Trump’s nomination of such an unfit nominee.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi has a deeply troubling record on LGBTQ+ equality, women's rights, the rights of lower-income families, immigrant rights, and respect for the Muslim community.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi has worked alongside White House aide Stephen Miller to advance the Trump administration’s xenophobic and racist immigration policies. And, in his time at the Department of Education, he worked to advance the harmful policies of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, presumably including regulations that make it more difficult for survivors of sexual assault to make a report their experiences.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/media-are-ignoring-far-right-white-house-lawyer-steven-menashis-judicial-nomination" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/media-are-ignoring-far-right-white-house-lawyer-steven-menashis-judicial-nomination</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>All major broadcast and cable TV news networks aside from MSNBC have failed to cover President Donald Trump’s far-right judicial nominee Steven Menashi since his confirmation hearing on September 11</b>. Menashi, a special assistant and associate counsel to the president who previously worked as acting general counsel at the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos, has published inflammatory comments about women, LGBTQ people, and people of color. The Senate Judiciary Committee will <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/10/30/2019/executive-business-meeting" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">vote</a> on October 31 to determine whether his nomination for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit will be considered by the full Senate. </font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During his September 11 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-judicial-nominee-slammed-by-senators-for-not-providing-details-of-his-work-as-white-house-counsel/2019/09/11/caca361a-d4d7-11e9-9343-40db57cf6abd_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">confirmation hearing</a>, Menashi “refused to answer most questions related to his work at the White House, specifically when asked if he had a role in the administration’s policy of separating migrant parents and children at the border and limiting the number of refugees allowed in the country.</span>” Members on both sides of the aisle expressed frustration with his refusal to be forthcoming about his past work. Menashi and his backers in the White House have continued to stonewall in the wake of his hearing, notably <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/trump-judicial-pick-who-wouldnt-answer-questions-about-role-in-trump-ukraine-call-faces-vote-this-week/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">against inquiries</a> about whether he was involved in White House <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-white-house/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">efforts</a> to hide <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/politics/alexander-vindman-testimony-white-house-transcript/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">the explosive transcript</a> of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry. </font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After Menashi’s hearing, broadcast news outlets CBS, ABC, and NBC did not have a single mention of him in their coverage. MSNBC was the only major cable network to cover him, reporting on the hearing for around 10 minutes and 30 seconds across three shows. But Fox News and CNN apparently did not find Menashi’s extreme views and stonewalling during his hearing notable enough to cover. </b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery, who has <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steven-menashi-senate-confirmation-hearing-protests-trump-judges_n_5d794e1be4b0a938a42d364b" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">written</a> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/protests-senate-offices-judges-steven-menashi_n_5d7810d6e4b094928f077fb9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">extensively</a> about the nomination, the Trump-Pence White House and Senate Republicans are attempting <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steven-menashi-trump-judge-lgbtq-women-diveristy_n_5d76c8cbe4b0752102316328?x8&fbclid=IwAR0pHqnpjf3JVzf-Elnvs_et582hHE_dxE1DAiZLBfpUVvf5fhZr4texwAs" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">to push</a> through Menashi’s nomination at “an incredibly fast turn-around,” noting that “it’s no mistake that the Republican-led [Senate Judiciary] committee kept its agenda empty until the last minute” when scheduling his September 11 hearing. </font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bendery noted that the expedited process “helped to stave off prolonged protests by progressive groups,” which may have also contributed to the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/trump-administration-hopes-catch-media-flat-footed-pushing-far-right-lawyer-toward" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">scant media coverage</a> prior to the nomination. </b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Major advocacy organizations have continued to oppose Menashi’s confirmation. On October 22, The NAACP <a href="https://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-calls-withdrawal-steven-menashi-nomination/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sent</a> a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee noting that he “has a vile, offensive record of attacking communities of color and opposing civil rights protections.” Leading LGBTQ organizations have also <a href="https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/dc_20191022_21-lgbt-groups-oppose-steven-menashi" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">asserted</a> that he “has clearly and consistently expressed his animosity towards the LGBT people and people living with HIV through his personal writings.”</span> He has made comments skeptical of open LGBTQ service in the military and criticized the Human Rights Campaign’s advocacy for hate crime legislation, among other positions. Additionally, CNN’s investigative journalism project KFILE <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/politics/kfile-steven-menashi-judge-nominee/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a> on his other inflammatory writings regarding race and advocacy around sexual assault prevention:</font></p></div></div><blockquote class="block-quote block-quote--collapsable" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);"><div class="block-quotequote" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.5rem;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Steven Menashi, a Stanford-trained lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, </b>wrote dozens of editorials and blog posts in the late 1990s and early 2000s for a number of college and professional publications decrying “leftist multiculturalism” and “PC orthodoxy.” He complained about “gynocentrists,” wrote that the Human Rights Campaign “incessantly exploited the slaying of Matthew Shepard for both financial and political benefit” and argued that a Dartmouth fraternity that held a “ghetto party” wasn't being racist.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He attacked academic multiculturalism as “thoroughly bankrupt”</b> and, in 2002, defended then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi amid a worldwide controversy over comments asserting the superiority of Western civilization over Islamic culture -- for which Berlusconi himself ultimately apologized.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" /> </font></p></div></blockquote><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Trump administration is dramatically reshaping the judiciary, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/two-years-in-trumps-appeals-court-confirmations-at-a-historic-high-point/2019/02/03/574226e6-1a90-11e9-9ebf-c5fed1b7a081_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">installing</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “a historic number of federal appeals court judges for this point of a presidency,” and it has selected unusually partisan nominees.</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Those judges are predominantly </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/667483587/trump-is-reshaping-the-judiciary-a-breakdown-by-race-gender-and-qualification" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">white and male</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and include several who are </span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alliance-defending-freedom/anti-lgbtq-powerhouse-alliance-defending-freedom-had-more-100-allies" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">tied to</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> extreme anti-LGBTQ group </span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alliance-defending-freedom/extremism-anti-lgbtq-powerhouse-alliance-defending-freedom?redirect_source=/research/2018/07/26/extremism-anti-lgbtq-powerhouse-alliance-defending-freedom/220367" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 204, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Alliance Defending Freedom</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Additionally, several nominees </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/mar/10/judge-not-five-judicial-nominees-trump-withdrew-and-four-pending" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">have been withdrawn</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> for being unqualified or extreme. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The effects of the Trump administration judiciary will be felt <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/10/trump-legacy-conservative-judges-district-courts" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">long</a> after the end of his presidency, so it’s time that media prioritized covering the extreme background of many of Trump’s nominees before they start their lifetime appointments.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Methodology</font></strong></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media Matters searched Nexis and SnapStream transcripts for cable and broadcast TV coverage appearing in original programming on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC between September 11 and noon on October 30 for mentions of the words “Menashi” or “Second Circuit.”</font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kfile ref</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/politics/kfile-steven-menashi-judge-nominee/index.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/politics/kfile-steven-menashi-judge-nominee/index.html</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">C<cite class="el-editorial-source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility">NN) </cite>A White House aide nominated by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/president-donald-trump-45" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">President Donald Trump</a> for a federal appeals court seat has a history of denouncing women's marches against sexual assault, dismissing education about multicultural awareness and accusing a major LGBTQ group of exploiting the brutal murder of a gay student for political ends.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Steven Menashi, a Stanford-trained lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, wrote dozens of editorials and blog posts in the late 1990s and early 2000s for a number of college and professional publications decrying "leftist multiculturalism" and "PC orthodoxy." He complained about "gynocentrists," wrote that the Human Rights Campaign "incessantly exploited the slaying of Matthew Shepard for both financial and political benefit" and argued that a Dartmouth fraternity that held a "ghetto party" wasn't being racist.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He attacked academic multiculturalism as "thoroughly bankrupt" and, in 2002, defended then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi amid a worldwide controversy over comments asserting the superiority of Western civilization over Islamic culture -- for which Berlusconi himself ultimately apologized.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The writings offer a window into Menashi's worldview, particularly on social issues, and are reflective of the broader conservative movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s. If confirmed by the Senate, Menashi would receive a lifetime appointment on the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont.</font></div><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-5 cn-zoneAdContainer" data-layout="list-hierarchical-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Menashi, whose <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-judicial-nominees-united-states-attorney-nominees-united-states-marshal-nominees/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">nomination was announced last week</a> by the White House, published his views first as a student at Dartmouth, where he was a writer and editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review, the conservative student newspaper that counts conservative commentators Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D'Souza among its alumni. After graduation, he continued his commentary in conservative publications <b>National Review, The Washington Times and American Enterprise </b>magazine, as well as the publication Doublethink.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyread-all" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Prior to graduating from<b> Stanford Law School in 2008, Menashi was a writer and editor for the Hoover Institution'</b>s Policy Review and a member of the editorial board for The New York Sun, a now-defunct conservative newspaper. Menashi also <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030329064616/http:/www.theamericanscene.com/about/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">co-authored</a> with Ross Douthat the conservative blog The American Scene through 2005, and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131227232933/http:/www.menashi.com/miscellany/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">contributed sporadically</a> in the years following.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Menashi, who was a partner at<b> Kirkland & Ellis</b> and an<b> assistant professor of law at George Mason University</b>, joined the Trump administration in 2017 and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-appointments-executive-office-president-2/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">moved to the White House in 2018</a>, after a stint at the Department of Education as the acting general counsel, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3984668-Department-of-Education-Political-Appointee.html#search/p70/Menashi" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">according to a copy of his resume</a>.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Department of Justice spokesman said in a comment to CNN's KFile that Menashi is qualified to serve, but declined to say if Menashi still holds his earlier views.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Mr. Menashi is exceptionally qualified to serve as a judge on the Second Circuit. Attempts to blatantly mischaracterize decades-old articles he wrote before he was even in law school do not change that," the spokesman said. He added that Menashi "looks forward to answering any questions Senators have when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 500; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 40px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Take Back the Night marches</font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While at Dartmouth, Menashi often covered Greek life and culture on campus for The Dartmouth Review.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050112004027/http:/www.dartreview.com/issues/10.2.00/editorial.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">One editorial</a> from October 2000 titled "Heteropatriarchal Gynophobes!" discussed Dartmouth's ranking as one of "the 10 most antimale schools in America," by Men's Health. Menashi -- then editor-in-chief -- harshly criticized Take Back the Night marches on college campuses, which seek to end violence against women.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"'Take Back the Night' marches charge the majority of male students with complicity in rape and sexual violence (every man's a potential rapist, they say; it's part of the patriarchal culture)—not to mention the 'Frats Rape' accusation that's chalked on the sidewalks from time to time," Menashi wrote. "And while campus gynocentrists can throw around these accusations, there's no similar leeway for men."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Offhand remarks or jokes can create a 'hostile environment' or 'stigmatize' women—and can be punished through official disciplinary action," he continued. "After all, women may be the majority, they may be the beneficiaries of special academic programs and institutional support, but they remain, by definition, an oppressed minority."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi cited commentator Christina Hoff Sommers, who had written the essay "The War Against Boys" <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/the-war-against-boys/304659/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">earlier that year</a> and who he said argued persuasively against "the prevailing view among educators is that girls are disadvantaged, and systematically victimized, in American schools."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Men at Dartmouth and similar schools live, as Sommers has written, 'in a state of permanent culpability,'" he added.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 500; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 40px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the Human Rights Campaign and 'don't ask, don't tell'</font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a March 2001 editorial in The Dartmouth Review, Menashi turned his focus on the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the US. Menashi accused the group of hypocrisy for <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060508042330/http:/www.theamericanscene.com/pubs/tdr31201.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">not speaking out </a>on crimes committed by gay men, only crimes committed against them. At the time, the trial was ongoing for the 1999 rape and murder of a 13-year-old boy named Jesse Dirkhising by two gay men. Menashi compared it with the 1998 slaying of Shepard, a gay man whose brutal murder inspired a new wave of gay activism in the late 1990s.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The gay rights group Human Rights campaign, which has incessantly exploited the slaying of Matthew Shepard for both financial and political benefit, has not said one word about Jesse Dirkhising," Menashi wrote. "In fact, despite some media queries, they consistently evade the issue."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi insisted that he wasn't suggesting a correlation between homosexuality and homicide -- something he wrote that only "militant" anti-gay people would do -- but rather arguing that "HRC only bolsters the unreasonable claims" by not responding to questions about the murder.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"By refusing to denounce the crime, and to sympathize with the Dirkhising family—or to acknowledge Jesse Dirkhising in any way—HRC only bolsters the unreasonable claims," he wrote. "In their unwillingness even to discuss the case, HRC implies that the killing says something about American gays. Something bad."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Writing for <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030331182243/http:/www.theamericanscene.com/pubs/tae1000.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">American Enterprise magazine for the October/November 2000 edition</a>, Menashi accused universities of hypocrisy as well for offering all-gay dormitories but opposing the military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"For years, tony colleges have sneered at the military for worrying about open homosexuals in the ranks," Menashi wrote.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The military says its 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy promotes the unit cohesion needed in combat by reducing sexual tension and respecting personal privacy," he said. "The colleges say these claims only mask irrational prejudice. University administrators insist troops in mortal combat should be able to handle the tension of living in mixed quarters. But it turns out that college kids living in dorms and frat houses, threatened by such dangers as beer kegs and basketball games, are quite a different matter."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In fact, the situation is so dire that colleges nationwide are establishing separate barracks for gays, not only as a haven from homophobic sophomores, but also to guard against emotional troubles gay students face in mixed living quarters," he later added.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 500; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 40px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On multiculturalism and diversity</font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In the same March 2001 editorial on the Human Rights Campaign, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Menashi touched on identity politics and compared college applications listing race to the Nuremberg Laws created in 1935 to segregate Jews in Germany.</span></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Identity politics subsumes individuals in a tribal unit,</b> and defines them not according to the dictates of their conscience or mind, but according to the historical circumstances of the tribe, and its relationship to actual or would-be oppressors," <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060508042330/http:/www.theamericanscene.com/pubs/tdr31201.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">wrote Menashi</a>. "Elite institutions generally nourish the disposition. Sixty years after the promulgation of the Nuremberg laws, universities persist in cataloguing students according to race on college applications and official documents. And our cultural and political beliefs are said to be a function of our bloodlines. What a subversion of the liberation of mind promised by education."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When students are taught to see all of history through the lens of racial conflict, it's not surprising that they will adopt this view in their actual lives," he continued. "Thus, campuses boil with racial tension, accusations of prejudice, and overt competition between 'identity' groups, demanding parochial academic programs, resource centers, and so on for the benefit of their own kind, from a limited pool of funds."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In several <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000819061452/http:/www.dartreview.com/issues/12.15.98/pi.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">editorials</a> for the newspaper, Menashi <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20020628001138/http:/dartreview.com:80/issues/2.12.01/editorial.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">defended </a>a fraternity that threw a "ghetto party," widely seen as racist, on free speech grounds. Mostly white partygoers donned Afros and toy guns, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/30/us/2-new-hampshire-campuses-address-rise-in-racial-tensions.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">contemporaneous story by The Associated Press</a>.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000819061452/http:/www.dartreview.com/issues/12.15.98/pi.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">wrote in December 1998</a>, after the episode made national news, that no one carried toy guns and only one person sported an Afro. I<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000819060825/http:/www.dartreview.com/issues/8.16.99/editorial.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">n a post</a> in August 1999, Menashi argued the "ghetto party" was "harmless and ultimately unimportant," along with a "lu'au" party that caused a minor controversy within Dartmouth.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Last November, amidst the controversy over the 'ghetto' party, The Dartmouth Review warned readers about a chilling effect on free speech," he wrote. "Students, even if they believed the ghetto party to be harmless, were intimidated into condemning the party and its sponsors. They weren't convinced it was racist, mind you. They were intimidated by protests, posters, rallies, letters, and campus activists who chastised as racist all dissenters."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The lu'au itself, like the ghetto party, was harmless and ultimately unimportant," he added. "The actual threat is a predominant ideology that forces students into silence when a privileged few object to their language or presentation—no matter how absurd the objections may be."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000819061550/http:/www.dartreview.com/issues/11.17.98/cultrev.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">In another 1998 editorial</a>, Menashi wrote that a pre-orientation program offered at Brown University for minority students <a href="https://www.browntwtp.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">called</a> the Third World Transition Program -- which Menashi wrote as "the Third World Training Program" -- was used by the school "to fully indoctrinate them in leftist multiculturalism."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Every fall at Brown University, newly-admitted minority students arrive on campus four days before their peers. They spend that time in Brown's 'Third World Training Program,' an intense seminar focusing on issues of race, class, gender, assimilation, and identity. When the rest of the student body arrives on campus, they are forced to watch a film depicting a conversation between a black man and a white man. At the conclusion of the film, the white man breaks down crying from guilt," wrote Menashi. "Next, the insidious part: the entire freshman class is divided into small groups and assigned a 'facilitator' to discuss race, class, and the rest. Naturally, those who participated in the Third World Training program are the most outspoken; they have just completed four days of instruction in PC orthodoxy."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After college, Menashi continued his critiques of multiculturalism awareness.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20021112223055/http:/www.americasfuture.org/doublethink/summer2002/summer2002.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">In an essay for the summer 2002 edition of Doublethink</a>, a now-defunct magazine published by<b> America's Future Foundation</b>, Menashi reviewed "Decade of Denial" -- a book by conservative commentator Herbert London.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Menashi called academic multiculturalism "thoroughly bankrupt," arguing it was about "denigrating western culture in order to promote self-esteem among 'marginalized' groups" and not about understanding other cultures.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Academic multiculturalism, for one, has been exposed as thoroughly bankrupt. The country would be aided in its current effort, certainly, if its students were familiar with other cultures, conversant in Arab history, and knowledgeable about Islamic law," he wrote. "But in fact they know very little of substance about other cultures, and as the FBI's post-September 11 pleas for Arabic and Pashto translators made clear, they're not learning non-Western languages, either."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It is now evident that multiculturalism was never about understanding non-Western cultures; it was about denigrating Western culture in order to promote self-esteem among 'marginalized' groups," he added. "The lazy cultural relativism endemic to academe also appears discredited after Americans have encountered true, undeniable evil. As we rediscover our shared civic life in the wake of national tragedy, perhaps Americans will come to share London's idealism— and rebuild our weakened common culture."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 500; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 40px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defended Berlusconi comments on Islamic culture</font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one case, Menashi defended comments on Islam even when those who espoused them eventually rejected them.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a December 2002<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Survival_of_Culture.html?id=fHhyQgAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;"> review of a book</a> called "The Survival of Culture" for <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2002/dec/15/20021215-110105-3898r/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">The Washington Times</a>, Menashi defended Berlusconi for stating "the obvious" when he wrote of "the superiority of Western civilization over Islam."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Throughout the book contributors address the issue of cultural relativism, the most conspicuous example being the brouhaha surrounding Silvio Berlusconi's proclamation of the superiority of Western civilization over Islam," wrote Menashi. "Appearing in Germany shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Italian prime minister said: 'We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights, and in contrast with Islamic countries respect for religious and political rights.' Mr. Berlusconi did nothing other than state the obvious. Yet politicos throughout Europe quickly denounced his comments and Mr. Berlusconi eventually recanted."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The European tendency, writes columnist Mark Steyn in his contribution to this collection, is to see deviation from basic guarantees of political decency 'as just another "alternative lifestyle" lesbianism, vegetarianism, totalitarianism, whatever,'" added Menashi. "This may save some public figures the burden of judging others, but it constitutes a flight from reality."</font></div><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-48 cn-zoneAdContainer" data-layout="list-hierarchical-xs" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Berlusconi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/world/furor-at-berlusconi-remark-on-west-s-superiority.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">comments caused</a> an uproar in Europe and the Middle East and the then-Prime Minister eventually apologized, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040228185942/https:/www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/28/gen.italy.berlusconi/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">saying his remarks</a> had been taken out of context and attacked his opposition.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'm sorry that a few words dragged out of the general context, badly interpreted, have offended the sensibility of my Arab and Muslim friends," Berlusconi said. "An artificial controversy has blown up based on nothing and fed by irresponsible comments from the opposition."</font></div></ul></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""></font></div></ul>