Posted on 04/20/2005 9:18:27 AM PDT by ArmyBratproud
The woman whose testimony now threatens to derail John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador claims he was "genuinely behaving like a madman" during a 1994 trip to Moscow.
But she's a self-described "liberal Democrat" who helped organize the Dallas chapter of "Mothers Opposing Bush" during last year's presidential campaign.
Story Continues Below
Melody Townsel first offered her bizarre allegation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 8, in a letter claiming that during a trip ten years ago to Kyrgyzstan, Bolton chased her through the halls of a her hotel throwing objects and screaming threats.
In her unlikely account Ms. Townsel said the harassment was not sexual.
Still, her uncorroborated story appears to have prompted at least one key Republican on the committee to withdraw his support for Bolton, forcing a delay in the vote.
"I don't feel comfortable voting today," Ohio Republican George Voinovich told the committee on Tuesday. "I think we ought to get the information [and] get a chance to have [the allegations] rebutted," he added.
Ms. Townsel was a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development at the time she and Bolton worked together.
"For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from USAID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there," Townsel claimed, in quotes first reported by the New York Sun on Monday.
"Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats," she continued.
The paper also uncovered the Bolton accuser's anti-Bush credentials.
Townsel's allegations which were touted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat, Joe Biden, who told his colleagues on Tuesday that the Bolton accuser was willing to sign a sworn affidavit to back her story.
Biden read from Townsel's letter:
"When I was dispatching a letter to AID, 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 genuinely behaving like a madman."
But in an interview with the Sun, Townsel admitted that she has no witnesses to back her claims. "There were people aware of the harassment, but they are not willing to come forward because they have existing business with the government," she said.
Townsel also admitted she was a staunch Bush basher, explaining, "There is no question that I have been a vocal and outspoken critic of this administration and I am a very liberal Democrat."
Asked why she didn't go public with her complaint in 2001, when Bolton's nomination for undersecretary of state was being considered by the same committee, Townsel said that at the time she had retreated from politics and was raising young children.
The floor is open (none / 0)
to take nominations for next week as well.
Chuck P or Tim Tatagaris, anyone? Mrs. Pastor, for living with the Mr.? amyindallas and her best friend Melody Townsel for outing John Bolton?
Let's hear them....
"To love G-d is to love justice." - Paul Wellstone
by JK Minnesota on Mon Apr 18th, 2005 at 08:44:37 PDT
******
Also see Amyindallas's (none / 1)
new diary updating the story of Melody Townsel (who was harrassed by Bolton in 1994). The MSM is starting to pick up on the story.
A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.
by sharkbite on Mon Apr 18th, 2005 at 08:28:11 PDT
Melody Townsel, The Subject of Today's Lead Diary "Horrifying, personal John Bolton story" will be interviewed at 9:45 pm Pacific Daylight Time on Air America's Majority Report.
East Coast Listeners say it's an incredible interview: with further info on Bolton's attacks, and how the Democratic Staff of the Foreign Relations Committee contacted her today - presumably in response to the DKOS Alerts and Diary.
Here are two links to Streaming Audio:
http://www.620kpoj.com/listen/index.php [Scroll all the way to the bottom]
http://www.quakeradio.com/listenlive.html
And this is just a start
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010199.php
(snip)
Pattern recognition
There is a familiar modus operandi at work in the accusation by Melody Townsel that John Bolton chased her through the halls of a Moscow hotel throwing objects and screaming threats at her in August 1994. New York Sun reporter Eli Lake has nailed most of the elements of the modus operandi in his article: "New Bolton accuser is a liberal from 'Mothers Opposing Bush.'" Lake reports:
Paging Buckhead!
Teachout named two prominent bloggers in particular: Jerome Armstrong of myDD.com and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos. "On Dean's campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients," Teachout wrote. "While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment—but it was very clearly, internally, our goal." In the past, Teachout has also fingered Matthew Gross for writing about Erskine Bowles while Gross was on the candidate's payroll.
You would think they would at least have created some "threatening letters." Dan Rather probably could have put them in touch with somebody!
Speaking of Dean .. didn't he just have a pow wow with a few millionaires over the weekend?
HOWARD DEAN (D)
Expenditures
2003-2004 Cycle
Armstrong Zuniga, LLC, Vancouver, WA
$7,000
11/20/2003
Consulting/Technology
Armstrong Zuniga, LLC, Vancouver, WA
$3,000
11/4/2003
Consulting/Technology
Armstrong Zuniga, LLC, Vancouver, WA
$3,000
1/28/2004
Consulting/Technology
Armstrong Zuniga, LLC, Vancouver, WA
$3,000
1/28/2004
Consulting/Technology
Does Biden have a habit of not revealing his sources? ........huh?
(SNIP)
Alexander Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a leading strategic communications firm focused on the global information technology market, today announced that five members of its executive management team have been promoted to senior vice president posts. Genna Keller, Patricia Nicolas, Dean Trevelino and Dawn Whaley from the agency's Atlanta headquarters, and Melody Townsel of the network's Dallas office (all formerly vice presidents), will expand their management roles while continuing to provide strategic counsel for the account teams and clients based out of their respective offices.
GO MO! And good afternoon! And thanks army brat!
Can any of you all find what Biden said about Bolton when he was confirmed in the job he is in now? I heard something about that sometime last night, but missed most it, but I got the impression he had quite a different view then.
Remember who Markos Zuniga is...
Markos Zuniga looked at his television and said, “I can’t believe that they’re going to hail these baby-killers as heroes,” and then he sat down to type. When he wrote, he gave voice to those people who make up the base of the modern Democratic Party: those people for whom the Iraqi “resistance” are heroes, Israel is the primary villain in the world, and private enterprise is at the root of all evil.
Howard Dean’s website featured him as a special guest. At least one Democratic Congressman actually bought ad space from him as have many other potential members of Congress. As of Saturday night he was running paid ads for Jane Mitakidies, a Democratic House candidate from Ohio, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the Minnesota House Democratic Caucus. The various ad spaces sold go for anywhere between $700-$2000 a month, according to Blogads, the site which serves as a broker. These ads are specifically bought and placed.
Did you get that? The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are paying thousands of dollars to an alleged man whose response to the savage killing of those Americans was, “Screw them.” Given the controversy that this has generated there is essentially zero chance that they have not heard of this. Is, “Screw them,” now the official response of the Democratic National Committee to the murder of four brave Americans?
Yes I know who he is
He was the punk who made the comments about the men that were killed, burnt and hung from the bridge in Iraq ...
He basically said they got what they deserved and hoped more died they same way
He rec'd a lot of heat for those comments and he had to pull his thread
He was also on C-span last week doing an interview at his home
He says he feels he has the right to say the things he does because he spent 3 years in the army
Here is the info I refered to in reply # 48. If AmyinDallas is Amy B Hunt...and she and Towsel go on dailykos to post.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1346560/posts?page=48#48
DailyKos (Zuniga) coordinated with the Dean Campaign. And now they are preparing to take donations to the DNC via the DailyKos web site.
http://www.dailykos.com/
by kos
Thu Feb 10th, 2005 at 11:26:15 PST
I'm getting lots of questions about donations to the DNC after Dean is officially promoted.
I was going to use this site's ePatriots account to do a fundraiser, but it would be better to make this a blogosphere-wide effort. So we've created an ActBlue page and we'll ask bloggers to promote it heavily starting Sunday afternoon.
The ePatriots tool is nice if we're seeking individual fundraising kudos. But all of us progressive bloggers are in this thing together, and we'll fundraise for our DNC together.
Stay tuned.
DailyKos' Company Coordinates with Howard Dean
http://www.armstrongzuniga.com/
A Brief History
The political partnership of Armstrong Zúniga (AZ) was formed in January of 2003, by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. From 2001 through 2002, Jerome’s popular weblog served as the original nexus for the decentralized netroots effort of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. Markos began DailyKos.com during the summer of 2002 (now the most popular political weblog with over 3 million monthly visits).
In late 2002, AZ began talks with Joe Trippi about Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, which culminated in a strategic map that advocated meetups and blogs in creating an online campaign community, a fundraising base, and the means to nationalize the Dean for America grassroots campaign far in advance of the elections. In April of 2003, AZ founded the DraftClark.com effort. In May, AZ took on our first political clients, including Howard Dean. Our clients include federal candidates, issue advocacy groups, and non-partisan organizations.
Rusty Foster joined Armstrong Zuniga in February of 2004 as CTO. Rusty created the Scoop software platform in 1999 and founded Kuro5hin.org the same year. Kuro5hin is widely recognized as a pioneering project in collaborative media. Foster has written and spoken extensively about the potential of the internet as a medium for collaboration and grassroots organizing.
Contact Us
info@armstrongzuniga.com
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a 32-year-old political junkie with no bylines to his credit but a popular Web site called DailyKos.com, was invited to travel with Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean.
I'm checking.
Something tells me if we look hard enough...we'll find connections between Biden and Townsel and Hunt in the past.
Maybe through Dean. Maybe through these different companies they worked at.
One thing is for sure. Looking at Amy B Hunt's and Townsel's bios.....It's easy to see how some folks get rich working with govt. contract groups.
Sucking in the tax dollars via subcontracting.
WASTING TAX PAYER MONEY.
TOWSEL is the one that needs to be investigated.
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