A former senator who left office under an ethical cloud is nominated for an ambassadorship. Some Republican senators question her nomination — and are promptly charged with racism.

A nominee for the federal bench is soft on crime. Republicans oppose his nomination &151; and they, too, are tarred as racists.

Democrats are playing the race card with unusual vigor these days, and it's easy to see why: They're desperate. "Neither Gore nor Bradley is cutting it with blacks and Hispanics &151; two groups absolutely essential for Democrats to win the presidential election," pollster John Zogby told the Washington Times, following a recent poll of 1,000 likely voters. The poll also indicated that the Republican frontrunner has an unusual level of support from minorities. Among blacks, Vice President Gore leads Gov. George W. Bush 59 percent to 31 percent. That 31 percent is alarmingly high, and is scaring Democrats into a fury of race-baiting.

The strategy is clear: Solidify the Democratic base by smearing Republicans as racist bogeymen. Months before the GOP convention, Democrats have selected a running mate for Bush: Sen. Jesse Helms. The Democrats had only limited success when they tried to put Helms's face on the defeat of the nuclear-test-ban treaty. But with their next attempt, they hit the jackpot: Helms walked into a well-prepared White House trap.

When the president nominated the highly objectionable Carol Moseley-Braun to be ambassador to New Zealand, Helms, predictably, objected. But instead of sticking to the allegations of illegality that have trailed Moseley-Braun like an oil slick since her 1992 Senate campaign, Helms demanded that she apologize for the fight she waged in 1993 against the United Daughters of the Confederacy over a patent involving the use of the Confederate flag.

The White House trap clanged shut. The Clintonites had the delicious spectacle of Jesse Helms arguing with a black woman (over the Confederate flag, no less!). Al Gore was clearly delighted, quickly declaring that he was "deeply angered and disappointed." He called on Bush and the other Republican candidates to join him "in rejecting Senator Helms's disgraceful tactic," in order to put an end to "divisiveness."

Helms dropped the demand he had made on behalf of "a wonderful group of little old ladies," but was still faced with the problem of the suitability of an ambassadorial nominee under serious suspicion of criminal behavior. Helms has noted an "ethical cloud" over Moseley-Braun, but a quick review of the unresolved allegations reveals far more serious problems than those gentle words suggest.

In 1995, the Justice Department twice turned down requests by the IRS criminal tax division seeking subpoena authority to pursue its investigation of Moseley-Braun. In its first request, the IRS told the Justice Department that it had evidence of bank fraud, bribery, and other crimes dating back to Moseley-Braun's stint as Cook County's recorder of deeds. In its second request, the IRS reported that Moseley-Braun and her 1992 Senate campaign manager (and ex-fiancé) may have used more than $280,000 in political donations for personal expenses. The IRS found evidence that the pair had spent $70,000 on designer clothes, $64,000 on travel to Hawaii, Europe, and Africa, $18,000 on jewelry, $12,000 on stereo equipment, and $25,000 for two Jeeps.

When the IRS investigation became public during Moseley-Braun's reelection race in 1998, the tax agency quickly announced that the senator was no longer under investigation. Moseley-Braun credited the Justice Department with clearing her of wrongdoing.

Had the investigation been quashed by illicit political pressure? According to numerous former Justice Department and IRS officials, IRS requests for subpoena authority to pursue additional evidence are routinely granted. Why were the requests refused in this case? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has requested documents from the Justice Department relating to this issue. The administration's response (surprise!) was to stonewall.

And that's not all. During her 1992 campaign, evidence surfaced that Moseley-Braun had committed Medicaid fraud. Three years earlier, she and her siblings had split a $28,750 inheritance owed to her mother, who, as a Medicaid patient in a nursing home, should have used the money to pay for her care. Moseley-Braun attributed the incident to a misunderstanding, and later paid $15,239 to reimburse the state. Illinois's Democratic attorney general declined to pursue the case, and although Republican governor Jim Edgar declared that "someone broke the law," he couldn't bring himself to say who exactly that might be. Perhaps he didn't have to. Despite her easy win against a weak Republican candidate in 1992, 56 percent of the voters doubted her honesty.

Moseley-Braun has escaped serious inquiry by boldly intimidating anyone who dares ask uncomfortable questions. She frequently complains about being held to a double standard owing to her race and sex. At one point during her reelection campaign, she flatly declared she wouldn't answer any questions about her use of campaign funds, or the activities of her former fiancé.

When George Will wrote a column in 1998 that detailed the charges she had faced, she likened him to a Ku Klux Klansman, who "can just take his hood and go back to wherever he came from." If George Will elicited such a response (George Will!), what hope is there for Jesse Helms's attempt to get some long-overdue answers?

Some Republican senators have concluded that the price of defeating the Moseley-Braun nomination would be too steep: a media circus portraying the wronging of a black woman by Jesse Helms. This explains why Moseley-Braun will likely be carrying her uninspected ethical baggage to New Zealand, after a bon voyage vote from the Senate.

A GOP leadership aide explains that senators were already defensive over the false charges of racism following the rejection of Judge Ronnie White for the federal bench. If Moseley-Braun is not confirmed, says the aide, "there is no doubt that all of the handwringers will vote to confirm the next liberal black nominee who goes to the floor." And that could be a pending nominee for a lifetime judicial appointment.The president has nominated Judge James Wynn of North Carolina to a southern appeals bench that currently enjoys a narrow conservative majority. In the opinion of one conservative legal analyst, this appeals court is the only one that routinely "articulates the right outcomes for the right reasons." The court has recently upheld both a ban on partial-birth abortion and a challenge to the Miranda decision.

Judge Wynn was defeated last November in his bid to stay on North Carolina's supreme court. The chief judge of the circuit maintains that there is no need to fill the vacancies on his court &151; and some Republican senators question whether Judge Wynn ought to enjoy a lifetime perch after North Carolina voters rejected him even for a limited-term appointment to their highest court.

It appears that Sen. Helms will have plenty of company in opposing the Wynn nomination. But when it comes to the campaign to nominate Helms for the 2000 GOP ticket, the White House isn't taking anything for granted: They recently opened another front. Ten congresswomen disrupted a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee to demand Helms's immediate attention to an international treaty on the elimination of discrimination against women. At Helms's request, the placard-waving women were escorted out of the hearing. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey insisted that the disruption of the hearing was justified, because "the women of the world cannot wait another day for him to take action on [the treaty]."

By the way, the urgent matter that warranted this manufactured confrontation has been pending before the Senate since 1980.