Authorities claim to have an incriminating tape and other hard evidence, but I want to give Claude Allen the benefit of the doubt as he faces felony theft charges. Having his face splashed all over the country’s major news outlets must be especially hard on Allen’s wife and children. President Bush, Allen’s boss until recently, expressed “deep disappointment.”

Allen’s attorney says a misunderstanding led to charges that Allen scammed a couple of department stores for about $5,000 in refunds he did not deserve. As a diehard defender of presumed innocence, I’m willing to accept his avowed innocence and, though I won’t be deciding his fate -- I live in the same county as Allen, but recently fulfilled my jury duty obligations for the next three years -- I will, like much of the public, be watching the case and will keep the burden of proof on the prosecution.

But there can be no such leniency when it comes to Allen’s record as domestic policy adviser to the president. For that, he already has a rap sheet. Were Allen to be charged with failing the American public he was sworn to serve, the verdict could only be “guilty.”

It is possible that Allen did not approve of Bush’s domestic policy decisions, but that’s doubtful and ultimately moot. Going along to get along is just as irresponsible, as Allen demonstrated when Jesse Helms, who represented North Carolina in the Senate for decades, opposed the Martin Luther King holiday designation and Allen kept right on working for the ornery bigot even though he said he was a King fan. So, obviously he is not above principles of convenience.

But a circumstantial case can be made that Allen did see where Bush was taking the country, which is to say down the drain. He is complicit in the most selfish, neglectful, elitist and reckless domestic policy agenda in decades, if not its author or chief advocate.

Consider these components of that agenda, especially how it affects the 37 million Americans who are poor -- an increase, by the way:

• Unemployment: Last month it was 4.2 percent overall, but 9.3 percent among blacks and 5.5 percent among Latinos.
• Health Care: 45 million Americans still don’t have coverage, and costs are only growing.
• Medicare: The latest Bush budget would cut benefits for nursing home care, and the prescription drug benefit is still a confused mess, with no controls on drug costs.
• Medicaid: Bush wants to increase co-payments and change eligibility standards that would make it harder for poor children to get health and mental health care.
• Housing: A $600 million cut to HUD means fewer subsidies and, therefore, fewer affordable housing units.
• Head Start: Frozen funding when costs are going up has the same effect as a funding cut.
• Environment: The administration wants to raise the cap on nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, among other pollutants, to benefit industry.
• Education: The Bush folks created new standards that, effectively, set up thousands of public schools to fail, then punishes them by withholding federal funds when they do.
• Veterans: New co-payments and enrollment fees make it harder for the men and women who served in the armed services to get medical and mental health services.
• Sex education: Abstinence only, baby.

Thus, while Bush was homing in on his foreign policy -- summarized in six, simple words: “war or the threat of war” -- the highest-ranking black person on the White House staff was either designing policies that would have a particularly adverse effect on Americans of color, thanks to ongoing discrimination; or he was signing off on someone else’s design in order to keep his job.

Too bad he can’t be tried for that. With George W. Bush as his co-defendant.