I hadn’t weighed in on the Patrick Hynes scandalette yet for a few reasons: 1) travel and travel prep took a big bite out of my week; 2) I wanted to sift through some of the details; and 3) because Hynes is a friend, I’ve been told things more or less off the record that I’ve no right to repeat in public, which does tie my hands a bit.

Be that as it may, my friend and former colleague Radley Balko concludes his anathema with this: “Hynes may be a terrific PR man. But he isn’t principled. And I think he’s lost the right to be taken seriously as anything more than a paid shill.”

But here’s the thing: I want to hear what Hynes has to say.

Hynes is rarely boring. He’s often insightful. He offers a from-the-trenches perspective that is foreign to most pundits and policy wonks. If he decides to quit the field of punditry, then we’ll be poorer for it.

Yes, he’s a PR man and a campaign consultant. Yes, he should do a better job of disclosure. And, yes, relationships with clients can place constraints upon what Hynes can say publicly and create all kinds of appearance problems when he decides not to muzzle himself.

So what?

If we believe in public reason, then we ought to weigh arguments on their own and not let ourselves be tripped up by the people advancing those arguments. We can stop our ears up with wax when Hynes steps up to the microphone or we can hear the man out. I vote for the latter.