PROVIDENCE — U.S. Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse wanted to talk yesterday about the need for “a new direction” in Washington.

But in his second live radio debate with Lincoln D. Chafee, the Republican incumbent, he was hammered from two sides for what his opponent called “willful blindness” to corruption at the State House, the state traffic court and Roger Williams Medical Center.

Democrat Whitehouse seized every opportunity to make his argument for political change: “The Bush administration has been a disaster for America and a disaster for Rhode Island. ... Once this election is passed and there is no longer any electoral accountability whatsoever . . . . every aspect of the Bush administration that has caused this country harm will be worse.

“Every objective observer of this race knows that we have a chance to put a Democratic Senate in place and a Democratic Senate can stop the nonsense.”

But Chafee and WHJJ talk show host and former Republican Rhode Island Attorney General Arlene Violet took turns pummeling him.

Violet asked Whitehouse why, during his own stint as attorney general between 1998 and 2002, he did not pursue the allegations of financial and ethical improprieties by Robert Urciuoli, then president of Roger Williams Medical Center, that doctors laid out for him.

One of the allegations she read on-air was the underpinning for Urciuoli’s conviction in federal court last week in connection with a State House influence-peddling scandal: “That Mr. U placed state Sen. John Celona in a $30,000/year. ‘no show’ job at the assisted living center as a quid pro quo for political support on several prior hospital issues.” (The government’s star witness was former Senator Celona, who pleaded guilty earlier to selling his public office for personal gain.)

Violet also read aloud another allegation within the letter that, she said, the doctors’ group, led by Dr. Philip O’Dowd, presented to Whitehouse in 1999: that Urciuoli falsified his expense reports to get more than $6,500 in reimbursements for a conference he didn’t attend.

“Why didn’t you go after Celona? Why didn’t you go after fraud?” Violet demanded.

Whitehouse’s response: “Where the law and the facts are there, I pursue it energetically. . . . I have always been very strong on public corruption.”

He cited, as evidence, the indictment of former Democratic state Sen. and Lincoln Town Administrator Jonathan Oster on municipal corruption charges stemming from an investigation he launched as attorney general, “the first wiretap investigation into public corruption in the state’s history.”

With respect to Roger Williams Hospital, he said, his criminal division advised him there was “no criminal case to be made largely because the hospital itself was unwilling to press charges.” He said he persuaded Urciuoli to repay the hospital the $85,000 expense of its investigation, or “five times” the amount in dispute.

But Violet disputed Whitehouse when he cited “attorney-client privilege” as a barrier in getting the findings of the Boston law firm hired by the hospital trustees to investigate. As the state’s top regulator of charitable trusts, Violet contended he was entitled to the document.

Violet also asked him why he didn’t launch the probe, requested by the citizens’ group Operation Clean Government, “of $39 million missing from the [state] traffic court.”

Said Violet: “Some of your critics said it looked like you didn’t want to ruffle feathers of [former] Chief Justice [Joseph R.] Weisberger or [Chief District Court Judge Albert E.] DeRobbio. ....What do you say to people who are worried you will not stand up to Democrat miscreants in Congress?”

To that question, Whitehouse had this answer: “The first thing I’d say is my main focus in getting down to Washington is going to be to stand up to the Bush administration and put this country on a new direction. This is what families all over Rhode Island are talking about when they are worried about paying for college education for their kids, when they are worried about the quality of their schools, when they are worried about whether their kid is going to be sent off to Iraq in an endless and, at this point, pointless war. . . .”

Said Chafee: “It’s a record of continued incompetence as attorney general and U.S. Attorney and the traffic court is just one example.”

Violet did not let fellow Republican Chafee completely off the hook.

If Republicans retain control of the Senate, that would mean “the Bush policies continue to dominate ... investigations that do or do not go forward are totally controlled by the Republicans. ... Can you at least concede that the Whitehouse campaign has a point that a vote for you at least puts the Bush agenda in the driver’s seat?”

“No, I don’t concede that,” Chafee said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia . . . [so] I think it’s in Rhode Island’s best interest ... to have one member of a four-member delegation in what might be the majority party.”

Whitehouse criticized Chafee for voting with “the Republican agenda 82 percent of the time in nonelection years,” for reneging on a “promise” not to vote for any Supreme Court nominee who would not commit to upholding the landmark abortion-rights decision, Roe v. Wade; and for giving Republican leaders an opening to push through a Medicare prescription-drug plan that eventually dumps seniors in a coverage hole.

“You rolled over for your Republican leadership,” Whitehouse said. “Hundreds of seniors are falling in that coverage gap because of you.”

Chafee said he only promised not to vote for a Supreme Court nominee who would change the makeup of the court. On the Medicare front, he said, his vote to allow his party leaders to bring the bill to the floor was not crucial and he ultimately voted against it.

Insisted Whitehouse: “The vote was crucial, Senator.”