Steven Menashi Before the Court

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Congratulations are in order for our erstwhile colleague at the Sun, Steven Menashi, who has just been comfortably confirmed as a United States Circuit Judge. He will ride the Second Circuit, which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont, and will hold the same seat that was held by later Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. We couldn’t be prouder of the new judge nor happier for the Second Circuit and those who look to it for justice.

The confirmation vote in the Senate was all the more satisfying after the smear campaign that was launched against Mr. Menashi by the Democrats. It included an ad hominem attack by Rachel Maddow that is one of the most demagogic that we can recall on a nominee to any office. She sought to tar Mr. Menashi as a bigot because of an article he wrote about the ethnonationalism that animates some of the greatest nations, including Israel.

None of the caricatures of Mr. Menashi was recognizable to one-time colleagues on the editorial board of the Sun. We made that point in a letter to Senators Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein. We wrote of the mature, scholarly, inclusive, and cheerful way in which Mr. Menashi had participated in the collaborative work that goes into editorials of the Sun. It bespeaks of a temperament that, we reckoned, bodes well for his collegiality as a member of a judicial panel.

We had, we noted, tried to talk Mr. Menashi out of going to law school. We hoped he’d make his career at the Sun. We confessed, though, that we are proud of the way he has pursued the constitutional cause. Not that even the most promising of young judges could fail to be humbled by the seat to which Judge Menashi will accede on the Second Circuit. Thurgood Marshall went on be one of the most widely admired justices in American history.

When the building that houses the elegant courtrooms of the Second Circuit was renamed for Marshall, Judge Ralph Winter told the story of how Marshall, showing up for his first day on the bench, was mistaken, by a secretary, for an electrician. Marshall was bemused, and later remarked to his clerk on how certain of the trade unions still were not open to African Americans: “Boy, that woman must be crazy if she thinks I could become an electrician,” he said.

We take that yarn as a reminder that America has a way of finding those who are bound for glory. And is full of surprises. The Democratic press is making much of how, with the confirmation of Judge Menashi, President Trump has “flipped” the Second Circuit to one with a Republican majority. On verra. A long newspaper life has taught us the folly of trying to predict what judges will do. We will venture but that Judge Menashi will do whatever he does brilliantly and with fidelity to the Constitution to which he’ll be sworn.


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