The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Who Is Todd Gaziano?

Posted on | July 17, 2010 | 5 Comments

That’s the question raised by the Ben Smith column at Politico in which Abigail Thernstrom accuses her fellow Republican members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission of exploiting the Black Panther voter-intimidation case in pursuit of “their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration.”

Thernstrom herself is well-known as a critic of race-based quotas in education and so she caused a stir a couple weeks ago when she declared in National Review that prosecution of the Panther case was a fool’s errand. What struck me in the Politico column was this:

“Millions of people saw the clip on Fox News and YouTube,” said Todd Gaziano, a commissioner who has been the driving force behind the commission’s investigation. “Any reasonable American knows this is voter intimidation. And so the dismissal itself of an infamous case where there’s footage is more damaging to people’s perception of the rule of law than a dismissal when nobody’s paying attention.”

OK, so the question naturally occurs, Who is Todd Gaziano? He is the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal & Judicial Studies:

Todd Gaziano focuses on legal and judicial reform and such constitutional issues as ensuring that all citizens are accorded equal treatment under the law. Before joining former Attorney General Edwin Meese at The Heritage Foundation in 1997, Mr. Gaziano served under noted conservative leaders in all three branches of the federal government. He was Chief Counsel to the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, where he worked on government-wide regulatory reform legislation for Chairman David McIntosh. He served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Justice Department, which provides advice on constitutional and legal issues to the President, the Attorney General, and other Cabinet Secretaries. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Edith H. Jones, United States Judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was selected as a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.

It’s not like Gaziano is a redneck hayseed who just fell off the turnip truck. Anyone wondering why so many conservatives have made a cause célèbre of the Panthers case can stop wondering: If Gaziano is a longtime associate of Ed Meese, he’s almost certainly good friends with Mark Levin, who is in turn friends with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. So his influence is not insignificant.

Gaziano’s argument is interesting: The Panther case is important because the widely-seen video made it so “infamous” that Eric Holder’s dismissal of the case is “damaging to people’s perception of the rule of law.” If nothing else, that makes Gaziano a leading endorsee of Professor Glenn Reynolds’ ubiquitous video camera argument.

Allahpundit asks the delicious question:

At the very least, since Fox now owns this story, will Megyn Kelly have Thernstrom on next week?

Ouch! Stop twisting my arm! I know you want me to re-post that Megyn Kelly/Kirsten Powers catfight video:

UPDATE: Remember that the Panther case got renewed attention after PJM published this column by DOJ whistleblower Christian Adams.

Category: Crime, Racism

Comments

5 Responses to “Who Is Todd Gaziano?”

  1. Neo
    July 17th, 2010 @ 12:01 pm

    “My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president”

    She is probably right. DOJ has stonewalled the Civil Rights Commission so far and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. So their efforts are a “wild notion.” On the other hand, if November brings a change in leadership on Capitol Hill, all bets are off. Holder will be gone before the summer next year, but not by the hand of the Civil Rights Commission.

  2. Neo
    July 17th, 2010 @ 8:01 am

    “My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president”

    She is probably right. DOJ has stonewalled the Civil Rights Commission so far and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. So their efforts are a “wild notion.” On the other hand, if November brings a change in leadership on Capitol Hill, all bets are off. Holder will be gone before the summer next year, but not by the hand of the Civil Rights Commission.

  3. young4eyes
    July 17th, 2010 @ 3:50 pm

    “Anyone wondering why so many conservatives have made a cause célèbre of the Panthers case can stop wondering”
    Uh, yeah.We know: Scary Black Guys standing in front of polling station reinforces the narrative that BO is a Black Panther or something.
    This is going to blow up in your faces, and you don’t even see it coming.
    Oh well.Not like you guys ever learn anyways….

  4. young4eyes
    July 17th, 2010 @ 11:50 am

    “Anyone wondering why so many conservatives have made a cause célèbre of the Panthers case can stop wondering”
    Uh, yeah.We know: Scary Black Guys standing in front of polling station reinforces the narrative that BO is a Black Panther or something.
    This is going to blow up in your faces, and you don’t even see it coming.
    Oh well.Not like you guys ever learn anyways….

  5. One man’s political football is another man’s political football | MorallyRight.org
    July 17th, 2010 @ 10:47 pm

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