WASHINGTON (AP) – Known for his own acerbic style, Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday came to the defense of John R. Bolton, who is struggling to survive blistering criticism and win confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee set May 12 to vote on the nominee, Cheney tried to turn around accusations that Bolton was not fit for the sensitive diplomatic post because of his blunt – and, according to some critics, berating – style.

“If being occasionally tough and aggressive and abrasive were a problem,” Cheney said, “a lot of members of the United States Senate wouldn’t qualify.”

His thrust seemed partly aimed at Democrats on the committee, who in their effort to block Bolton have made his temperament an issue. The remarks drew chuckles from the audience at the National Press Club, the Republican National Lawyers Association.

“In this time and place, it’s extraordinarily important for us to have a tough advocate at the U.N., and I think John is that advocate,” Cheney said. “I’ve looked at all the charges that have been made. I don’t think any of them stand up to scrutiny.”

Even so, senators’ staffers held another day of interviews with critics of Bolton. Among them was Thomas Hubbard, who was President Bush’s ambassador to South Korea until he retired last year.

Among Hubbard’s accusations were that Bolton berated him for failing in 2003 to arrange a meeting with the president-elect of South Korea, Roh Moo-Hyun.

Hubbard also is challenging Bolton’s testimony to the committee that he had praised Bolton for a speech that year denouncing Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, as a “tyrannical dictator.”

Instead, Hubbard said, he had suggested that the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security “tone down” the speech.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, has talked to two fence-sitting Republican senators, Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, at their invitation.

“The general considers the discussions private,” said his spokeswoman, Peggy Cifrino.

Powell was the only living former Republican secretary of state who did not sign a letter of support for Bolton that was sent to the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on April 5.

When Powell ran the State Department his views were often at odds with Bolton’s. Powell was inclined to take a moderate position on world issues while Bolton, like Bush, hewed to a hard line.

The State Department seemed nonchalant about Powell’s intervention, which could be critical to Bolton’s chances of clearing the committee and winning confirmation in the Senate itself. The nomination was set back last Tuesday when Lugar’s panel postponed a scheduled vote on Bolton because some Republicans, as well as Democrats, wanted to continue investigating his past.

“Secretary Powell is answering requests for information the way that we do, the way than any American citizen would,” said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shares that view, Ereli said. “The secretary and the State Department believe that questions of the committee should be answered,” he said.

The May 12 voting date was set by Lugar and the senior Democrat on the committee, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. It meant that Bolton and the administration have more time to solidify GOP support – and nearly three more weeks during which additional revelations about the nominee could emerge.

They also agreed to complete their work by May 6, said Andy Fisher, Lugar’s spokesman. And he said there were no plans to recall Bolton for more testimony.

Bolton answered questions under oath for more than seven hours on April 12.