Here is an all to common scene played out these days on the major TV pundit fests:

(1) An accusation is leveled against Clinton
("He stole stuff from Air Force One!,"
 "He is bilking the tax payers in order to work in a ritzy downtown New York office,"
 "He pardoned a fugitive for money," etc.)

(2) The talk show host, along with the usual cast of right-wing think tank
 spokespeople, rant and rave over this accusation.

(3) The brunt of this ranting and raving is born by some poor schlub Democrat who is
 present only as a token appeaser to "Fair And Balanced" journalism.

(4) The Democrat, if he puts up any kind of defense at all, spends half their time
 accusing Clinton along with the rest of the guests.

(5) End result: Clinton is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!

 I have basically given up on watching the pundit shows, not because they
 are hosted by right-wingers and dominated by right-wing propaganda, but
 primarily because the Democrats are such wimps when it comes to responding
 to this crap. My blood pressure, as well as my marital bliss, are done no
 favor by the screaming this induces in me. I dream of the day when
 Democrats will stop trying to "win by losing" (Dick Gephardt's deliberate
 strategy during the impeachment hearings) and start "win by winning." The
 Democrats have spent so many years being the "nice guys" in this struggle
 that they have lost the ability to fight.

 Not that I can really blame them. "Defending Clinton" can be a very tedious task.
 I get no joy out of it. And I imagine most of these poor Democrats don't much enjoy it either.
 After all, "once burned, twice shy."
 No one in Washington wants to be caught saying, "he didn't do anything wrong," only to find out that he did.
 Besides, many of these same Democrats don't really like Clinton all that much anyway.

 Thus my advice: stop defending Clinton.

 First of all, Clinton is a grownup (no, really, stop laughing). He can
 take care of himself (stop that sniggering). He's been through this shit
 for 10 years and if he hasn't learned a few things about how to deal with
 it by now then I say maybe he should be left behind.

 Second, the Republicans understand, if not consciously but on a more
 subtle level, that it is much easier to prove guilt than it is to prove
 innocence. So, the minute a Democrat is put into the position of having to
 prove Clinton's innocence, 90 percent of the battle is already won.

 And finally, stop defending the guy because defending Clinton is not what this fight is about.

 Clinton is just the convenient patsy for a coarsening of our political
 dialogue. He is a demagogic target used to distract attention away from
 the real issues (such as, what junior is doing this week to destroy the
 progressive policies of the last 75 years).

 When the Lewinsky scandal broke three years ago I can remember getting
 into several online arguments in which the following pattern would repeat:

 (1) A Clinton Hater makes an accusation against the man.

 (2) I ask for some evidence to back up that accusation.

 (3) Said Clinton Hater accuses me of defending the man (which is, naturally, inexcusable).

 I ended up spending half of my time arguing that I was not a "Clinton Defender."

 What gets lost here is a very basic principle of a civil society: judgment of guilt should be based
 on the preponderance of the evidence, not the preponderance of the accusation.

 Yet this is the kind of thing we see all the time on the TV these days.  Just last week Howard Kurtz
 accused Joshua Marshall of "appearing to be a knee-jerk Clinton defender" simply because Marshall
 made the simple request, in a column published for Slate, that the press corps not publish accusations
 of trashed White House offices before they investigate whether it really happened. We live in a world
 where practicing this basic journalistic principle has become justification for dismissing a skeptical
 voice in the wilderness.

 So I say don't waste time trying to think up defenses for Clinton. He, or his hired guns, can do that just fine.
 What we need to do is demand evidence. Here are some steps you can take in doing this:

 (1) When you hear an accusation, demand evidence.

 (2) When evidence is given, if it is given, look for weaknesses. If it is weak, say so.

 (3) If the response to a request for evidence or the response to a claim of "weak evidence" is
 "you're just defending the guy," you know you have already won the argument.
 You just have to convince the audience of that fact.

 (4) Convincing the audience requires pointing out that you are not defending behavior but simply asking
 for evidence of said behavior. Most people will understand this if given the chance, especially if you
 personalize it for them (I think this is what helped Clinton the most  during the Lewinsky scandal).

 Remember that when we ask for "evidence before guilt" we are not defending
 the accused. What we are defending is the following simple principle:
 GUILT SHOULD BE JUDGED BY THE EVIDENCE, NOT THE VOLUME OF THE ACCUSATION.