His father was a practicing lawyer and local magistrate, his uncle was the former major league baseball broadcaster Gene Osborn, and his maternal grandfather was an airline industry pioneer and Pentagon official who was closely associated with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson.
He matriculated at the College of William & Mary and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa in 1979, where he majored in economics and history and wrote for The Daily Iowan.
[2] Following the 9/11 attacks, there was increased interest in effectively communicating American policies, traditions and values directly to foreign publics, and the role of the Commission in evaluating and improving this work was heightened.
[3] From 1989 to 1992, he served with the U.S. State Department under Secretary James A. Baker III, where he worked with an inter-agency group to reconcile executive privilege concerns in response to Congressional oversight of policies leading to the first Gulf War.
[4] After law school, he clerked for Judge Albert Vickers Bryan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Osborn is a contributing columnist for Forbes.com and STAT, and has published op-ed columns and notable essays in law and policy journals, including: