McClellan petition-Good idea or bad

After reading an email sent by MoveOn urging me to sign their McClellan petition, I responded to them on the "suggestions or comments" page of their website with this email:

Though I share many of the sentiments you described in MoveOn's petition, I have
two problems concerning Mr. McClellan being goaded into giving all of his book
profits to charity.

1. He hasn't been convicted of any crime. The presumption of innocence must be
preserved, even for (one might argue, especially for) the president's former press
secretary.

2. Any action on MoveOn's part that might make future whistleblowers reluctant to
"sound the alarm", whether during or after their direct involvement, should be
avoided. Although we might find it disgusting that someone like Mr. McClellan,
who was involved in taking this country to war on false pretenses, is being
financially rewarded for it, we must weigh this petition's amelioration of a moral
wrong against the possibility that it may silence others in the Bush administration
who may coming to grips with their role in the Iraq fiasco and may yet find the
courage to speak truth to power.

I have supported many of MoveOn's petitions in the past, but I cannot agree with
the proposition that Mr. McClellan should be singled out to be the whipping boy for
President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's atrocious policies and indefensible
actions.

I received what must have been an autoresponse email (in part):

Dear friend,

Thank you. Your name has been added to the petition and your comments will be delivered to former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

I then followed up with this:

I emailed my *objections* to the McClellan petition. Imagine my surprise to see
that, as a response, MoveOn was happy to ADD my name to the petition!
If the time that I spent attempting to voice my, I believe, valid arguments *against*
the wisdom of the petition is not reciprocated by someone taking the time to at least
*read* the email and understand that I was *NOT* signing the petition, then I will,
unfortunately, be canceling my subscription to MoveOn's newsletters.
Below is a repetition of the previous email. If you can find *any* part of it that
would even remotely suggest that I was in favor of this ill-conceived petition, then I
will apologize.

To state my argument another way, what if a staffer to Senator McCain was
considering writing a scathing tell-all book before the November election about the
Republican nominee, but decided not to because he or she believed that an
advocacy group like MoveOn might put pressure on them to donate all proceeds to
charity? I, for one, would much rather have them publish that book, even though
they might profit financially.

I'd be grateful for a *considered* response (rather than a robotic one) to this
question.

In ascertaining where to make a comment, I noticed that the petitions come from
comments from MoveOn's members and then are reviewed by staff. Perhaps there
should be a place for other members to have a dialog before these petitions are
posted. Progressives should not be making decisions in the same manner as
President Bush; the paucity of contrary opinions in the White House caused them to
go "off the tracks", to use a McClellan phrase. Perhaps, the points I have made, and
others might have contributed. might have caused MoveOn's leadership to
reconsider this petition.

End of email.

I'm posting this for two reasons:

1. To point out the fact that it would be great if there was a separate discussion board for members to endeavor to create a petition and for discussion of same.

2. To try to get some feedback as to whether it's just me that thinks that this McClellan petition is a bad idea, or are you fine with the idea that someone who was trying to communicate the President's policies (and not playing any role in making or shaping it) should be castigated for finally speaking truth to power. We should be giving those who want to blow the whistle on this corrupt administration as many reasons as possible to do so. Although it might give us a moment's pleasure to punish Scott McClellan for being a Bushie, I'd much rather have as many of them write tell-all books as their conscience would have them do so.

Although I don't view Scott McClellan as a hero, it must certainly be unnerving, not to mention lonely, to be someone whose former colleagues are now trying to frame as just another "disgruntled ex-employee" or "that's not the Scott McClellan I knew". Let's save our invective for the real culprits: Bush, Cheney, the neocons and those in the MSM who believe that they, themselves, did a fine job reporting on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Let's also try to get MoveOn more communicative with their members.