Temper, Temper, Temper ...

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It's often the steady drip-drip of accusations that ultimately undermines embattled Washington nominees. But what's surprising about Bolton's precarious situation is that he may be undone more by the charges that he's a bully toward colleagues and underlings than by his strongly held conservative views about U.S. foreign policy and international institutions like the U.N. "We can't argue that this guy is unfit just because he's said mean things about the U.N.," conceded a top Senate Democrat. "Don't forget, most Americans agree with him." Though troubling to some Republicans, even allegations that Bolton has a tendency to exaggerate intelligence to suit his ideological preconceptions--and intimidate analysts who challenge him--did not seem enough to persuade them to risk the wrath of the Bush White House by opposing him.

But tales of Bolton's ferocious management style seemed to strike a toxic note. One charge came from Melody Townsel, who dispatched an impassioned e-mail to the committee about her encounters with Bolton while working for a private subcontractor on a 1994 U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) mission in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Townsel says she wrote a letter to AID officials complaining about the lack of funds for the project from the contractor, a company that had hired Bolton as a lawyer. "Within hours after dispatching that letter," Townsel told the committee, "my hell began. Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel--throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and generally behaving like a madman ... Mr. Bolton then routinely visited [my hotel] to pound on the door and shout threats." Later, Townsel says, Bolton falsely told AID and other U.S. officials that she was under investigation for misuse of funds. Democrats and TIME have found witnesses to corroborate parts of Townsel's story. Republicans point out that she is a Democrat who was a member of the Dallas chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush during the 2004 campaign. Townsel tells TIME she did public relations work for the organization but insists her story about her encounter with Bolton--which "had a tremendous, terrible impact on me"--is true.

Bolton faces less partisan accusers as well. Nearly 60 retired diplomats, many of whom served under Republican Presidents, signed a letter to the committee opposing Bolton's confirmation. Frederick Vreeland, a former ambassador to Morocco who worked under Bolton when both were senior State Department officials in the Administration of Bush's father, sent an e-mail obtained by TIME to top committee Democrat Joseph Biden, saying Bolton "dealt with visitors to his office as if they were servants with whom he could be dismissive, curt and negative."