U.N. nominee could be confirmed despite claims of abusing authority

WASHINGTON -- A former chief of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research castigated John R. Bolton on Tuesday as a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" who abused analysts who disagreed with him on Cuba. A Democrat said he "needs anger management."\nThe pivotal Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, said he was "still inclined" to vote to confirm Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Constitution gives President Bush considerable leeway to name ambassadors, and "I see the bar as very high" for rejecting his choices, Chafee told reporters after the hearing adjourned.\nWith Republicans in the majority, Bolton's nomination could clear the committee Thursday or early next week and go to the Senate with the committee's approval. Bolton's greater vulnerability is at the committee level because Republicans outnumber Democrats there only 10-8. They have a safer margin of strength in the Senate.\nDemocrats' insistence that Bolton's mistreatment of lower-level officials who would not bend to his hard-line views was underscored by Carl W. Ford Jr., who appeared voluntarily as a witness to support the accusations of harassment.\n"I have never seen anyone quite like Mr. Bolton," Ford testified under oath. "He abuses his authority with little people."\nContradicting Bolton's assertion Monday that he never tried to have officials who disagreed with him discharged, Ford charged that Bolton tried to sack analyst Christian Westermann and that Bolton was a "serial abuser."\n"If this isn't enough, I don't know what you can do" to derail the Bolton nomination, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said in an interview afterward. He said "a whole slew" of officials could have been summoned to make similar accusations.\nDodd said he had not been told by any Republican that he would oppose confirmation.\nThe chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the "paramount issue" was giving President Bush the nominee he wants to undertake reform at the United Nations. "Bluntness may not be very good diplomacy, but on occasion it may be required," Lugar said as the hearing drew to a close.\nSen. Joseph F. Biden Jr., D-Del., who is leading the fight to block the nomination, responded angrily to the accusation of mistreatment. Anytime a senior official calls in a lower-level one "and reams him a new one," he said, "that's just not acceptable."\nSen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said it was not an isolated incident and that Bolton had harassed at least three officials who disagreed with the extent of threats he saw posed by Cuba and other countries.\nCalling Bolton a "bully," Boxer said, "I think Mr. Bolton needs anger management at a minimum, and he does not deserve to be promoted" to the U.N. post.\nChafee noted calmly that analysts criticized by Bolton had "kept their jobs."\nAnd. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., noting Ford had not witnessed the incident involving Westermann, said much of the testimony would not be admissible in a court of law.\nFord told the committee he considered himself a loyal Republican, a conservative and a strong supporter of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Ford said he appeared before the committee only after a lot of "soul-searching"