Bauer angered left during 2008 campaign

The man tapped Friday as the new White House counsel angered the left by suggesting Scooter Libby should receive a pardon.

Bauer wrote a blog post during the 2008 presidential campaign that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, should receive a pardon.

Libby was convicted of several counts related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Former President George W. Bush refused to pardon Libby despite reports that Cheney repeatedly and intensely requested that he do so.

The post on HuffingtonPost.com raised anger and questions among liberals who wondered why Bauer would float the idea during the campaign. Bauer is Obama’s personal lawyer and was serving as the Obama campaign’s general counsel at the time.

“Never at any time have I written for a candidate or asked a candidate’s approval, and I have not done so in this instance,” Bauer told The Hill in June 2008. “The truth of the matter is, to sound humbly, I’m just his lawyer.”

The Obama campaign at the time insisted that Bauer was speaking for himself and not representing the eventual president or his campaign, but some on the left did not accept this explanation.

At Firedoglake.com, after Bauer's post last year, Jane Hamsher wrote: “So are we to accept that the general counsel for the Obama campaign stepped out on his own in such a high profile way with such a hot button issue and the candidate had no knowledge of it?”

Bauer argued that a pardon could actually be a victory for liberals, forcing Bush to implicitly acknowledge his own responsibility in the matter.

"It compels [Bush] to do what he has so far managed to avoid: accept in some way responsibility for the conduct of his Administration in communicating with the public about national security and in its treatment of dissent," Bauer wrote.

The White House on Friday announced Bauer would replace Gregory Craig as White House counsel.

Bauer is a longtime Washington figure and an attorney at Perkins Coie. He is married to Anita Dunn, the interim White House communications director who announced her return to the private sector this week.