Matthew Yglesias points to the Gallup Poll which indicates people actually do care about what happened in the Scooter Libby matter and wonders if there isn’t a campaign issue in the offing.

For that to be the case, Democrats with presidential aspirations could not embrace the divided loyalties they do currently. As much as they would all like to appear to be populists, the 08s must also self-identify as part of the beltway elites, which transcends party affiliation. And the bobblehead class has made it clear — Libby is one of their own, and coming out strong against Scooter is tantamount to a war on them.

Edwards already suffers from marginalization because of his perceived class betrayal — it fueled the scoffing over a rich man with the audacity to care about poverty and the obsession with his $400 haircut. So anxious was Obama to escape this fate I believe it motivated his general counsel’s call for Scooter to be pardoned — in retrospect it looks to me like nothing so much as end-of-the-quarter dog whistle that told the Washington Brahmins that they shouldn’t worry about him being owned by his quarter-million plebe donors, he still knows how to observe the edicts of the ruling class.