FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: OBAMA CAMPAIGN TESTING "PARDON LIBBY" MESSAGE?

Barack Obama's general counsel, Robert F. Bauer, put up a strange essay on The Huffington Post--strange because it explores "the progressive case for a Libby pardon."   

Strange timing for a top Obama campaign staffer to suddenly come out in public for a pardon of a criminally convicted, heading-for-the-slammer, lied-to-out-a-CIA-agent, conned-this-country-into-the-Iraq-invasion, man-without-morals, ex-chief of staff to Dick Cheney (a.k.a., the most hated man in the word of all time...ever). 

Or is it?

My guess as to what this is about: messaging.

I think the Obama campaign could be testing this "pardon" frame through the Bauer post and the real question could be:  Why?

My money would be on Obama's pollsters worrying about fear of public backlash against the Dems in Congress (à la what happened to the Republicans after the Clinton impeachment). 

So...Bauer drops this  article, they do some polling, and then figure out a good triangulation strategy.  If that's true, we can expect Obama--the first time he gets a question about Libby--to talk moving past the politics of division to the politics of "hope" and "healing." 

I'm not saying that I am for or against such a strategy if it is in fact unfolding (personally...I want Libby to be sent to Rikers Island), but it would fit into Obama's overall messaging if it did go down that way.

Check it out for your self and see what you think.

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[UPDATE] -  A spokesman for the Obama campaign let TPM know that the Senator does not support a Libby pardon:

Yes, he [Obama] definitely opposes a pardon. The Obama campaign just sent over this from spokesman Dan Pfeiffer:

"Bob was speaking on his own behalf. Senator Obama opposes a pardon and strongly believes that Libby should be held accountable for his actions."

Mmm...OK.

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop