Over in his letters section, Andrew Sullivan publishes a letter from one of his readers that makes a point that I like to harp on as well–the limited applicability of the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.”

This is a legal concept, and not one that’s meant to apply to discourse. It applies to the court of law, not the court of public opinion.

And not to beat up any more on the ex-football player…(ah, heck, why not? He deserves it)…just because OJ was found innocent by a jury of questionable mental acuity doesn’t mean that we are required to believe him innocent. It only relieves him of a visit to prison–it doesn’t entitle him to being absolved in the mind of the public, who does understand DNA, and the concept that some possibly tainted evidence doesn’t entitle one to throw out the whole evidentiary baby with the dirty bathwater.

As the letter writer points out, this weird notion that everyone is supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law was used to great effect by Clinton apologists to illegitimately shut down his critics. Despite all of the evidence shredding, the amnesia under oath, the lying to diaries, the friends and associates indicted and convicted, we were not supposed to criticize the Big He, because he was “presumed innocent.”

To shut down speculation on Mr. Clinton’s, or more recently, Mr. Condit’s possible guilt because they are “presumed innocent” is to remove one of the tools by which wrongdoing is punished when the courts do not, can not or even, in some cases, should not act–public opprobrium. And to use such a tactic as a tool to quiet political opponents is, if not the last one, a refuge for a scoundrel.