The saddest development in the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal is that the spectre of Johnnie Cochranism again has reared its ugly head. You surely remember Cochran, the hip trial lawyer who was an integral part of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team” of legal advisors. His signature line — “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” — will go down in infamy.

The Simpson trial also is where “playing the race card” became part of the American vernacular. The “Dream Team” didn’t convince the predominantly black jury that Simpson was innocent as much as it convinced them that he was being framed by white detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department.

When it was announced that Simpson had been acquitted, the reaction in the African-American community was chilling to anybody who believes in human dignity and simple justice. There was widespread cheering and celebrating. It was seen as a victory for blacks against whites — and never mind that the evidence overwhelmingly indicated that Simpson had brutally murdered his ex-wife, Nicolle, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Some blacks told interviewers that they didn’t care if Simpson was guilty — that he deserved to get off as a partial repayment for the way white society had sanctioned violence against blacks for more than 100 years. They saw it as payback, which is quite different from justice. This attitude, more than anything, showed just how polarized the races still were — and still are, judging by some of the reaction to Vick’s indictment on charges of underwriting an illegal dog-fighting operation that involved big-time gambling and the inhumane killing of dogs who had lost their value in the fighting ring.

The charges against Vick and his associates repulsed compassionate Americans of all races. The radio talks shows hummed with disgust. The NFL and his team, the Atlanta Falcons, were applauded for moving swiftly to suspend him until the charges against him were either proved or dropped. His commercial sponsors began taking the products he endorsed off the market.

But then the other shoe dropped. Some talk-show callers began saying that Michael was a vick-tim of racism. They accused White American of violating his civil rights by pre-judging him. Acting much like a human pit bull, the president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attacked animal-rights groups, the media, the NFL, the team, and Vick’s corporate sponsors.

“If Mr. Vick is guilty, he should pay for his crime,” said R.L. White. “But to treat him as he is being treated now is also a crime. Be restrained in your judgment until the legal process is completed.”

In other words, White was implicitly playing the race card. Vick was being villified not because he’s a despicable human being, but because he’s black. Somewhere in Lawyer Heaven, Johnnie Cochran had to be smiling and nodding.

Interestingly, nobody from the NAACP issue a similar statement in defense of Tim Donaghy, the NBA referee who has been accused of fixing games in order to pay off gambling debts. Donaghy has been villified every bit as much as Vick. He also has not gone through the legal system. Yet because he’s white, the NAACP has no chance to play the race card. If he were black, you can bet it would be a different deal.

The NAACP also has been silent, to my knowledge, on the firestorm of whether San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds used steroids to enhance his performance. Like Vick, Bonds is an African-American. He has already been pre-judged guilty by the vast majority of the public and the press. Yet it’s difficult for the NAACP to make a case for racism when two other sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, have been similarly villified. McGwire is white, Sosa a native of the Dominican Republic.

Reverse racism is every bit as wrong-headed and cynical as regular racism. It impedes our progress as a society. The day must come, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, when we judge people “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

That’s how Vick, Donaghy, and Bonds deserve to be judged. In each case, the content of their character is seriously lacking. They don’t have to be found guilty in a court of law to merit our contempt. We already know enough about them to know that they do not deserve our respect, trust, and support. It can only be hoped that Vick never plays another game in the NFL and Donaghy never referees another game in any sport, anywhere.

As for Bonds, I’ve stated before that I believe he’s guilty of using steroids. But I don’t blame him as much as I blame Commissioner Bud Selig for dragging his feet on making steroids illegal and establishing testing procedures.

When Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa were captivating the nation with their home-run prowess, Selig and the big-league owners knew what was going on.But instead of stopping it, they tacitly encouraged it by ignoring it. After all, the bulked-up sluggers were putting fannies in the seats and selling TV commercials. At bottom, that counts more than anything to the venal men who run baseball.

So I blame baseball more than Bonds. The NCAA (not to be confused with the NAACP) would call it “lack of institutional control.” And I assure you, it has nothing to do with racism or reverse racism. Bad people must be labeled as such and condemned by society as a whole. Or, to put it in terms that Johnnie Cochran could understand, the race card must be tossed out of the deck.