Here is my letter to Scott McClellan:

Dear Mr. McClellan,

I am a fellow Austinite who has watched with horror to the collapse of credibility of our government institutions and international reputation under eight years of the Bush administration. When you were press secretary I often felt anger or frustration with your answers, and with the press corps who seemed unable and unwilling to get to the truth. But, while I felt contempt for many other figures in the Bush administration, I always felt some empathy for you. It always seemed to me that you were uncomfortable in your role of relaying half-truths, lies, and stonewalling. Perhaps I imagined it, but I sensed at times that it was truly painful for you to have the job of keeping the truth from the American public and silencing legitimate critics and lines of inquiry. I actually felt a great deal of compassion for you.

I read your fascinating book and I admire your courage for writing it. It confirmed for me that I had not imagined that conflict in your heart. It is strange thing for a lifelong Democrat, but some of the people I most admire in the past eight years are those who might have been ideologically on the right but whose own sense of integrity caused them to examine the tactics and reality of what the Bush administration has done—to the constitution, the department of justice, America’s foreign policy—and to speak out. People like Colin Powell, James Comey, Jack Goldsmith, Col. Morris Davis and now you are, in my mind, true patriots.

I heard you say on several talk shows that you had not decided who you would vote for in November, nor whether you would endorse. I heard you say you would be looking very closely at which candidate would focus on governance and not on the “permanent campaign mentality.” I am not asking you to endorse Barack Obama. I don’t know how much weight such an endorsement would have, frankly.

But I do believe that you are in a truly unique position to make a statement about what we have all seen happening to the McCain campaign. It is obvious he did not pick any of the people he believed could best govern our nation for vice president. He let Karl Rove pick the VP that would energize the base. He has handed over the reigns of his campaign to the very people who demonized him in 2000. He has learned that when caught in a lie you repeat the lie over and over, and he has learned it from the masters. You have talked compellingly about how easy it is to get caught in the bubble and, tragically, it appears to me, that the bubble has engulfed another once-honorable man in John McCain. You can make a difference by calling him out publically. Please do it soon, before Karl Rove gets another eight years in power.