Forget the Linda Chavez imbroglio: By lying to Bush and the FBI, Chavez Borked herself out of the labor secretary job in a way that gained the Democrats little and cost Bush less. Ashcroft is the game that counts.

And there is far more involved than Beltway bragging rights. For some sense of the stakes in this fight, turn to Janet Reno's farewell speech to the Department of Justice on Thursday. As Reno expressed her thanks to each of her agency's divisions in turn, it provided a vivid portrait of the sweep of agencies Ashcroft would now command. Not just those high profile outfits like the FBI and the Civil Rights Division, but offices dedicated to taxes, to consumer protection, to victims of crime, to the environment, on and on. Ashcroft, serving a new president who seems to rely more heavily upon his Cabinet and advisors than any chief executive in memory, would assume office vested with unprecedented power, touching a broad panorama of daily life.

Yet for all the ruckus over Ashcroft's conservative extremism -- his opposition to abortion and contraception, his hostility to African-American interests and his vision of a highly permeable church-state wall -- it's striking how Senate Democrats like Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy and senior Democrat Joe Biden have so far accepted George W. Bush's description of Ashcroft as a "man of integrity." Democrats, while preparing to grandstand on a handful of hot-button issues, seem content to allow Bush and Ashcroft to frame the basic story he will carry into the confirmation hearing.

In fact, Ashcroft's record on at least a few key issues ought to be enough to call into question that "man of integrity" image, at least if "integrity" implies some commitment to public interest rather than marital fidelity and an aversion to dancing. Consider one issue far removed from abortion, or gay rights, or desegregation, or any of those ideological fault lines: healthcare. As a senator, Ashcroft has for years carried water for some of the greediest players on the healthcare scene: pharmaceutical companies, for-profit HMOs, insurance companies, all at the expense of consumer interest.

With all of the emotion surrounding Ashcroft's stands on abortion and school desegregation and the death penalty, this key part of his record has received short shrift. Yet think back to 1993, and recall that what initially roused opposition to President Clinton's first nominee for attorney general, Zoe Baird, was not her "nanny problem." It was her career as top lawyer for an insurance conglomerate -- a background, many public-interest advocates pointed out, that imperiled her ability to serve as the People's Lawyer on the increasingly crucial terrain of healthcare reform.

With Ashcroft those same healthcare profiteers have won the grand prize, but they paid well for it. Between 1994 and 1998 the pharmaceutical industry, insurance industry and various anti-consumer healthcare lobbies paid out nearly $1 million in contributions to Ashcroft's reelection campaign. Ashcroft returned the favor on multiple occasions: Four times in the last year he voted against prescription-drug benefits for Medicaid recipients; twice he helped kill the bipartisan Patients' Bill of Rights, which would have allowed consumers to sue managed-care companies for delayed or denied care. He also backed a phony business-sponsored Patients' Bill of Rights that would prohibit consumers from suing their managed-care providers.

In the case of one pharmaceutical giant, the Schering-Plough Corp., Ashcroft's services -- and compensation -- were even more explicit. In 1999 Ashcroft, chair of the Senate's subcommittee on patents, played a pivotal role in extending patents for several drugs, most significantly Schering-Plough's allergy medication Claritin. By keeping Claritin from going generic, Ashcroft cost consumers an estimated $10 billion. One month after the patents were extended, Schering-Plough returned the favor with a $50,000 Ashcroft contribution.

What's that? You say carrying water for the managed-care mafia is just Beltway business as usual? Then how about this: When Ashcroft was governor of Missouri, he specialized in rewarding his high-rolling contributors by naming them judges. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 1988, 12 of Ashcroft's first 24 appointees to the Missouri bench or their spouses were contributors.

And that was just the beginning. Over eight years as governor, Ashcroft had the opportunity to name seven justices to the state Supreme Court -- in fact, to fill every seat. As People for the American Way notes in a report on Ashcroft's Missouri record, five of those seven justices were the Man of Integrity's cronies, either close personal friends, subordinates or political and financial supporters. One of those appointments -- of a 33-year-old aide just eight years out of law school, with no judicial experience -- led the state Legislature to attempt to curb Ashcroft's nomination powers. Another had contributed $1,000 to Ashcroft just weeks before he named her to a lower state court, a few years before her Supreme Court appointment.

Is this an attorney general to entrust with the federal courts? Look at Ashcroft's Missouri record and the picture that emerges is of an individual who can most generously be called ethically challenged -- a striking nomination from a president who has promised an administration free of scandal.

The point is that Ashcroft's "man of integrity" image need not be the governing narrative of this confirmation. That Democrats like Biden and Leahy have so far let this yarn take shape reflects a fundamental problem for Ashcroft's opponents: The biggest obstacle to defeating Ashcroft may be Judiciary Committee Democrats themselves.

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