After seeing the left’s hit job on Barack Obama critic Samuel Wurzelbacher (a/k/a Joe the Plumber), I can’t help wondering if political factors play a role in the recent “downfall” of another Obama dissenter.

Last week, talk radio host Edward “Reese” Hopkins, a black conservative Republican whose show preceded Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast on Boston’s WRKO between December 2007 and October 2008, was arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a friend of his stepdaughter’s in New York City in the fall of 2004. Hopkins has denied the charges, claiming that he did not live in New York City at the time the alleged assault took place. He also claims that he ordered his stepdaughter not to have any contact with the alleged victim several months prior to the time of the alleged assault, because the alleged victim was an inappropriate influence upon his stepdaughter. According to published reports, the alleged victim’s mother only learned about the alleged 2004 assault this past summer.

Hopkins made a handful of appearances on CNN and Fox Business Channel prior to his arrest; in his most recent appearance, three days before his arrest, Hopkins made clear his disdain for Colin Powell’s decision to endorse Obama. Hopkins also made criticism of Obama a focal point of his WRKO show.

Hopkins, of course, is innocent until proven guilty—which is why it is so bizarre that some in the Boston area have already decided that Hopkins is guilty. The comment sections of Boston Herald stories about the Hopkins case feature various posts with a “string him up” theme: apparently, the folks making these posts have never heard of people being falsely accused of sex crimes. A local anti-Hopkins blogger has also joined in on the fun, even going so far as to accuse Hopkins of fictionalizing his conservative stances to gain publicity. (Has anyone ever heard of a black man pretending to be a Republican to get attention—besides Colin Powell, that is?)

Did Hopkins’ legitimately conservative politics play a role in his arrest? We’ll never know conclusively. Hopkins generated his share of controversy during his tenure at New York’s WWPR-FM (“Power 105.1”) in the early-2000s: the self-professed “Crossover Negro” outraged liberal listeners of the “Star and Buc Wild Morning Show” with his staunch criticisms of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and reverence for Ronald Reagan. Is it a stretch to think that someone wanted to silence him now that he was beginning to gain national attention for his attacks on Obama?

Until this case is resolved, shame on those who have rushed to judgment and labeled him guilty without a trial. I’m not surprised by liberals who’d like to see Reese hang. However, I don’t know what to make of non-liberals who have apparently joined the get-Reese chorus in Boston. Shouldn’t non-“progressives” be the first ones to be cautious about mistakes in the criminal justice system? How can we forget the long list of folks who have been falsely accused of serious crimes in this country—Richard Jewell, the Duke University lacrosse players, the Scottsboro Boys?

If Hopkins is in fact guilty, I won’t have any sympathy if a fellow inmate does to him what he allegedly did to the alleged victim in this case. However, if Hopkins is innocent, then the folks who automatically assumed he was guilty should be ashamed—but, of course, they won’t be, because such people are shameless.