Normally i would dismiss such speculation as over-thinking things but you could be right. It would be a good strategy on their part, if they did actually plan this. But the question then becomes....why use an obscene gesture as a distraction? The possible answer is that they are banking on non-political junkies (like us here who are aware of previous instances and are aware that Obama isn’t quite the All-American hero that the media portrays him as) to see the “bird” gesture as nonsense, they will say that of course if you have a camera on someone hour after hour every day there’s bound to be inadvertent gestures like this. This feeling will of course be helped along by the media who will say that the Republicans are getting desperate.
This points out something that i have noticed since the Clinton years. That we too often look for that one huge knockout punch instead of just continuing to pound away with what got our opponent back on the ropes in the first place (in this case Wright, coal).
correction: meant to say “unlike us here” instead of “like us here”