These objections are nonsense. Has anybody found that, as attorney general of Missouri, Mr. Ashcroft refused to enforce laws that he would have opposed as a legislator? This is the old canard that conservatives are especially likely to replace law with their personal policy preferences. When I was solicitor general, the official who represents the United States in the Supreme Court, I regularly argued for the validity of laws about which I had the gravest personal doubts. It seems to me that conservatives, given their respect for institutions and the rule of law, are more likely than liberals to enforce the law as it stands.

Janet Reno is the poster girl for the liberal deformation and ignoring of plain law. One hears not a word of complaint from Democrats about that. Indeed, when Ms. Reno was nominated, it was known that she was pro-abortion, pro-gun control, and pro-affirmative action, yet no Republican questioned her willingness to enforce the law and that was a mistake. She has been the model of a political attorney general, not only flatly refusing to obey the statutory command to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the campaign finance scandals implicating her president and vice president but actually opposing in court the independent counsel she appointed.

If Mr. Ashcroft had anything of equal gravity on his record, he should not be confirmed. But it would have been refreshing if any of the leftish senators, such as Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle and Chuck Schumer, who are questioning Mr. Ashcroft's qualifications, had said a single word about Ms. Reno's shameful performance in office.

I would have found it refreshing if any of these gentlemen had said even that Sen. Edward Kennedy's string of lies about me (in "Robert Bork's America . . . women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution," etc.) was perhaps just a bit over the line. None did. I was told, even by some liberals outside Congress, not to respond because the charges were so grotesque that they would do me more good than harm.

And therein lies a lesson for this nominee: Do not assume that wild and obviously false accusations do no harm. They do and, unrebutted by the administration, they become a drum beat that eventually impresses much of the public. Clement Haynsworth, Richard Nixon's perfectly respectable nominee for the Supreme Court, told me that the charges flung at him were so vitriolic that he didn't recognize himself and found himself saying when he read the papers, "This man won't do!" Mr. Ashcroft needs to demand, and to get, a vigorous rebuttal from the president-elect's staff.

If the confirmation hearings are prolonged and vicious, the main effect, as Mr. Ashcroft may find, is that you become extremely tired to the point of exhaustion and prone to mistakes. Not serious mistakes but, for example, failure to take the time to rebut in full every slanderous allegation. And it becomes impossible to read the newspapers or watch television network news, which are extremely hostile to conservative nominees and become part of the baying pack. Accusations are aired in full, rebuttals only selectively in order to appear to confirm the allegations.

Though I was not much in favor of the idea, my wife insisted that we read a Psalm each morning during my confirmation battle. My favorite became the third, which referred to the Lord as smiting my enemies upon the cheek and breaking the teeth of the ungodly. I don't think that was the lesson she wanted me to learn.

Mr. Ashcroft will hear the ever-popular charge of "racism" from his enemies within and without the Senate. That there is no fact to support that charge will deter his opponents not one bit. He did, after all, oppose the confirmation of one black judge to a seat on a federal court of appeals. The fact that he voted to confirm many other blacks will be overlooked, as will be his record in Missouri and his wife's teaching at the predominantly black Howard University. Still, as I learned, the persistent charges of hostility to women and minorities, without a shred of proof, begin to take their toll.

This time the lies should be thrown back in the left's face. A resolute and aggressive defense can confirm Mr. Ashcroft and gain momentum for Mr. Bush.

In thinking of the parallels between my experience in the confirmation process and today's battle, I realize that I have one asset the attorney general-designate can never earn: suitability as a verb. Nobody will ever say, "Let's ashcroft him."