How DailyKos Helped Dems Attack Bolton

When Melody Townsel, the Texas woman who claims that U.N.-ambassador nominee John Bolton chased her through a Moscow hotel, throwing things at her and "behaving like a madman," first tried to tell her story to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the committee showed no interest. It was only after she turned to the influential far-Left website DailyKos that Democrats on the committee realized Townsel might be a powerful weapon in their campaign to defeat the Bolton nomination.

The story began on Friday, April 8, when Townsel e-mailed her story to the committee. In an interview last night with National Review Online, she explained that she sent the letter, which described an alleged incident that occurred when she was working for an Agency for International Development subcontractor in Kyrgyzstan, to the committee's general e-mail address, and not to any particular senator. It was an explosive story. Bolton, she wrote,

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. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.

One might have expected Democrats on the committee to take immediate notice. But days passed - including April 12, the day of Bolton's confirmation hearing - and Townsel heard nothing from the committee. "I got two form e-mails, one from [Democratic Sen. Joseph] Biden and one from someone I don't remember," Townsel says. "They said thank you very much for your comments."

A few more days passed, and then a week, and Townsel still heard nothing from the committee. Then, on Friday, April 15, with the committee's scheduled vote on Bolton just four days away, a friend of Townsel's, to whom she had told the story, asked if she could post Townsel's letter on DailyKos. The friend, who went by the name amyindallas, posted the letter with the comment that "[Townsel] described the incident in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members (who have thus far responded with a yawn), and I wanted to share it with a larger audience."

It worked. "Within a few hours, I started getting phone calls," Townsel told NRO, "one from the Senate and then the Senate again, both Democratic staffers." Democrats who had heretofore shown no interest in Townsel's story were suddenly very, very interested.

That evening, Townsel got a call from the liberal radio network Air America, and she soon found herself on the air. "I make no secret of the fact that I am an extremely liberal and vocal Democrat," Townsel, who was a member of the group Mothers Opposing Bush, said on Air America. But she claimed that her partisanship did not play a factor in her decision to speak out. Bolton, she said, had been "not just very difficult to deal with but abusive and confrontational and ended up sort of chucking some things in a meeting and pounding on hotel doors and trotting across hotel lobbies to get to me, and it was uncomfortable and kind of creepy." (A number of people involved in the matter, including Townsel's then-boss, have cast doubt on key parts of her story.)

By the next day, Saturday, April 16, Democrats sent Townsel's letter out to dozens of reporters. By Sunday morning, her story was in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Biden, whose office had blown Townsel off just a few days before, announced on Fox News Sunday that, "A former AID worker in Kyrgyzstan wrote an open letter to the committee...saying that she'd essentially been harassed by John Bolton...For me, that's an issue."

On Monday, April 18, the day before the scheduled (and later postponed) committee vote on Bolton, Townsel's friend, amyindallas, posted another message on DailyKos. "I want to thank everybody on Kos," she said, "for creating such a buzz about her letter that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had no choice but to at least hear her out." By Tuesday, Townsel's hometown paper, the Dallas Morning News, ran a story headlined, "Bolton Foes Hope E-Mail Alleging Abuse Sways UN Ambassador Vote."

And indeed, it appears that it did. At the April 19 committee meeting to vote on Bolton, Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, read at length from Townsel's letter. Later in the session, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich stunned his fellow Republicans by announcing that "I've heard enough today that I don't feel comfortable about voting for Mr. Bolton." The vote was postponed for three weeks.

Townsel, meanwhile, says she is surprised by the turn of events, saying she "didn't feel like we would get any response." But she did, and all because a liberal blog, like conservative websites in earlier controversies involving Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and others, played a key role in another high-profile fight.

As the following editorial published in the Wall Street Journal on 13 December 2001 makes clear, the only reason Amb. Reich has not been on duty before now is because of an ideological vendetta waged against him by Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee. Even as ominous economic, political and/or strategic developments in Latin American nations like Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru have demanded expert and competent leadership from the U.S. government, Sen. Dodd has blocked the Reich nomination. Worse yet, he has maliciously sullied the name of the man President Bush knows can provide such leadership while denying Amb. Reich a hearing in which to rebut false charges. The Senator's motivation is transparent: He fears such a hearing would demonstrate to the world that it is Chris Dodd's deplorable record on hemispheric affairs -- not Otto Reich's estimable one -- that should be subjected to critical reviews.

Now that Sen. Dodd and his colleagues have finally left town, Mr. Bush should exercise his constitutional prerogative to make a recess appointment for Ambassador Reich to his State Department post. By so doing, he can simultaneously end a travesty of congressional abuse of power and give the Nation a man whose talents and abilities are more needed with every passing day.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:n9z4FDKGgskJ:www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp%3Fsection%3Dpapers%26code%3D01-F_86+Janice+O%27Connell+Chris+dodd&hl=en

She demanded that his statement that it was HE who wanted the guy fired be removed from the record!

And he said it was Biden and Dodd's STAFF that is doing all the leaking and smearing!

Howlin, you are so bad...lol!

Janice O'Connell has been with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since 1977, worked for Senator Frank Church, Senator Claiborne Pell, and since 1986 for Senator Dodd. Worked in opposition to Contra aid and military assistance to El Salvador, supported restoration of civilian rule in Haiti, worked on legislation to end sanctions on food and medicines to Cuba, and to lift travel restrictions on American travel to Cuba.

Janice O'Connell has for a long time in the Senate been a force for rational policy and sensitive and humane American behavior in the hemisphere.

******

January 9, 2002

It is common knowledge in the Senate that Dodd has ceded responsibility to Janice O'Connell, his longtime foreign relations aide. O'Connell is one of the anonymous senior congressional staffers who dictate policy -- in her case, Latin America policy. She has spawned a collection of scalps of diplomats who do not conform to her left-of-center ideology. For example, the estimable Foreign Service professional Michael Kozak, now ambassador to Belarus, was blocked by O'Connell from the Panama portfolio.

Dodd and O'Connell have spent months opposing Reich on the basis of a disputed General Accounting Office (GAO) report that Reich in 1985, heading the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America, ran a "prohibited covert propaganda campaign" on behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras. Those charges never emerged when the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Reich by voice vote in 1986 as ambassador to Venezuela. But since the fall of Nicaragua's leftist regime in 1990, O'Connell and her friends have vowed to keep Reich from public office.

The newer, widely published allegation that Reich in Caracas tried to gain entry into the United States of accused anti-Castro Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch has been categorically denied by the State Department. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has notified publications who reported this charge that Reich "did not urge the Department of State to issue a visa to an accused terrorist. On the contrary, under his direction, the U.S. embassy advised the Department of State that it believed (Bosch) was ineligible for a visa."

These accusations and their rebuttals could have been aired in an open hearing, but Dodd would not activate that forum. Instead, as he did with me Sept. 29, he hints that "we may see another candidate emerge" from the White House, adding: "I'm not the only person (who opposes him). Nor is it just a Democratic opposition."

In truth, however, the president and Secretary of State Colin Powell have been firm in supporting Reich. Nor has Dodd enjoyed much success recruiting Republicans. The only GOP senator publicly opposed to Reich is Michael Enzi, a low-profile first-termer from Wyoming who nearly always votes conservative. On Dec. 20, Enzi joined Dodd in asking Bush not to make a recess appointment of Reich, citing the outrageous premise that "he has not gone through the requisite committee process."

State Department sources say Dodd convinced Enzi that Reich, a Cuban-American, would block the supposed cornucopia of farm exports to Cuba. But the Cuban embargo is up to George W. Bush, not Otto Reich. That is the president's responsibility, as is selecting who will serve in his administration.

Robert Novak

******

Robert Novak Sun-Times Columnist
April 14, 2005

Excerpt:

Why did Monday's Democratic assault on John Bolton at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have so little to do with how he would perform as U.S. ambassador at the United Nations and so much about Cuban biological warfare? It may be partially explained by tactical considerations. But the more significant reason is Sen. Christopher Dodd's long-range goal of normalized relations with Fidel Castro.

Coordinated Democratic grilling of Undersecretary of State Bolton avoided stigmatizing him as a conservative critic of the widely unpopular U.N. Leading the attack on Bolton, Dodd even said he agreed with much of Bolton's criticism of the world organization. Only Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) could not restrain herself from declaring how ''outrageous'' it was to put a conservative U.S. representative at the U.N.

The other Democrats followed Dodd's lead in dwelling on a 2002 speech by Bolton alleging Cuba's development of germ warfare for export to rogue nations. The link to the U.N. was that another exaggerated weapons-of-mass-destruction claim would further undermine U.S. credibility there. However, Dodd was following his regular practice of attacking anti-Castro officials, having barred Senate confirmation of Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and driven him from the government.

Dodd's real problems with Bolton go beyond the U.N. While Democrats temporarily controlled the Senate in 2001, Dodd helped delay for two months Bolton's confirmation as undersecretary for arms control. Bolton was finally confirmed, 57 to 43, with Dodd voting no.

A year later on May 6, 2002, Dodd exploded when Bolton's address to the Heritage Foundation reported ''at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort'' in Cuba, sending technology ''to other rogue states.'' This revelation, Bolton has said, was long delayed by the presence at the Pentagon of a Castro spy, Ana Belen Montes, as senior Cuban intelligence analyst.

Bolton's disclosure threatened efforts by Dodd and his longtime Foreign Relations Committee staffer, Janice O'Connell, to normalize relations with Cuba. Dodd demanded a hearing with Bolton in the dock, but Secretary of State Colin Powell would not make Bolton available.

Dodd renewed the fight when President Bush named Bolton to the U.N., exposing grave disputes inside the national security bureaucracy. Bolton was accused of bullying State Department analyst Christian Westermann, who claimed Bolton exaggerated Cuba's germ warfare potentialities. Bolton has charged that Westermann went behind Bolton's back to undermine his case while his Heritage speech was being cleared by intelligence.

May 2, 2002

Chris Dodd's vendetta

Excerpt...

Dodd may be less interested in protecting democracy in Venezuela than in settling old scores with Reich. That seems out of character for the easy-going, politically ambitious Connecticut senator. But Dodd's longtime adviser on Latin American affairs, Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Janice O'Connell, has not forgiven Reich for his aggressive support for Nicaraguan Contras. She also sees the Cuban-born Reich as an obstacle to warm relations with Castro's Cuba.

O'Connell impresses on State Department officials that she represents the permanent government whose word must be heeded by temporary presidential appointees. When Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage went to Capitol Hill to confer with Dodd last week, O'Connell was at the senator's side.

As chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee dealing with the Western Hemisphere, Dodd refused even a hearing on Reich's nomination. Reich took office this year as a recess appointment to avoid the confirmation process, but President Bush plans to submit the nomination again in 2003. When a Reich supporter asked Dodd whether he would convene a hearing giving him a chance to refute charges spread by the senator's staff, Dodd replied: "Over my dead body." The Venezuelan fiasco now has generated new accusations.

I asked one senior U.S. intelligence official whether the CIA had a hand in the coup, and he replied: "I assure you that if we did, we wouldn't have made such a mess of it." While the Agency surely lacks the capability of removing hostile regimes in Iran or Guatemala as in Cold War days, neither is it capable of making the mess in Caracas. This was an amateur affair with the brief succession to president of businessman Pedro Carmona concocted by billionaire Venezuelan oil families, on the telephone from Miami.

While pro-Chavez legislators in Caracas have blamed Washington for plotting a coup, Chavez's minister of defense has denied it. "I think this is reckless," Jose Vicente Rangel said last week. Nor were reports accurate that Reich telephoned Carmona during his two-day reign. Charles Shapiro, the career diplomat newly installed as U.S. ambassador in Caracas, did call Carmona at Reich's instruction in two futile efforts to dissuade him from dissolving the National Assembly.

Last week, I interviewed two non-political eyewitnesses to the tumultuous events in Venezuela: a newspaper reporter and a police officer. They described in detail the course of events that led to Chavez's removal and restoration. There was no mention of a hidden hand from Washington.

The surest signal was the lack of uproar, outside of Havana, about Yankee intervention. The false dawn of Hugo Chavez's removal was greeted with relief in private corridors of power throughout the hemisphere -- as it was by Venezuela's people. Objective observers believe his popularity has diminished radically as he has driven down the economy.

None of this in itself will save Otto Reich. Dodd's vendetta poses a threat because of a potential stab in the back from career foreign service officers at the State Department. Reich must rely on constancy from the president and the secretary of state, who share his views and support his positions.

Robert Novak

Janice O'Connell, longtime foreign relations aide to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (who is launching a campaign for better U.S. relations with Castro). Such disparate anti-Reich sources as Castro, Arias and O'Connell share a common animosity. They cannot forgive Reich for his persistent Reagan administration role in keeping the contras alive, assuring the ultimate fall of Nicaragua's Marxist dictatorship. Arias specifically bemoans Reich's ''allegiance to the Reagan administration's hard-line policies toward Central America.''

The assault by the Cuban Communists is particularly noxious in its fascist and Nazi name-calling. Reich's father, an Austrian Jew, fled Hitler's Anschluss in 1938 for Cuba, where Otto was born. His grandparents died in the Holocaust.

Arias was just as far off the mark. He said that Reich successfully lobbied the Clinton administration on behalf of Lockheed Martin to permit the sale of F-16 warplanes to Chile; in fact, Reich did not go to work for the company until after the ban on high grade weaponry had been lifted. Contrary to Arias, Reich never was even accused of wrongdoing in supporting the contras under Reagan.

The settling of old scores on Nicaragua also has targeted John Negroponte, Bush's nominee as ambassador to the United Nations. While an active Contra supporter as ambassador to Honduras in the '80s, Negroponte is a less inviting target than Reich.

One influential conservative Republican senator thinks Reich may be the sacrificial lamb to appease Senate Democrats. He notes that Secretary of State Colin Powell, on Fox News June 17, lavishly praised Negroponte but said nothing about Reich. The explanation may be that Powell was asked about Negroponte but not Reich. A recent meeting between White House aides and Senate GOP staffers agreed there should be a vigorous effort on Reich's behalf. Veteran Republican operative Tom Korologos was asked last week to add Reich to the pack of Bush nominees he is shepherding. George W. Bush may be underestimated again, this time by his own conservative base. Naming Reich to head Latin American policy was an act of solidarity with Reaganism. That Castro targeted Reich validates the choice.

http://tinyurl.com/aox2c

Venezuela's Gathering Marxist Storm

Excerpt...

Also helping to keep Chavez in power has been the attention of Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), at the time of the brief coup the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, and his chief foreign-policy aide, Janice O'Connell. Columnist Robert Novak wrote in April that Dodd and particularly O'Connell hold a grudge against Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, a conservative and anticommunist. This antagonism to Reich in particular, and conservatives generally, fuels Dodd's aggressive stance on U.S. policy in Latin America.

Novak reported and Insight sources confirm that, with the Democrats in control of the Senate, O'Connell made it clear to career officials in the State Department that it was she who was calling the shots on U.S. policy in Latin America. As a result, career State Department officials were unwilling to take risks by supporting the democratic opposition in Venezuela for fear of retribution by O'Connell. Foreign policy insiders say that during the 48-hour period when Chavez was removed from the presidency, Dodd's office was very active - and successful - at guaranteeing that Washington did nothing to assure Chavez's permanent ouster. "Dodd clearly called the shots on Latin America policy," said one State Department official. "There is no conservative counterbalance to Janice O'Connell in the Senate now that Jesse Helms is gone." O'Connell did not return telephone calls seeking comment for this article.

http://tinyurl.com/eydso

WHILE CARACAS BURNS SEN. DODD'S PETULANCE THREATENS NATIONAL SECURITY

By Wall Street Journal

Thursday, December 13, 2001

Excerpt...

Mr. Dodd knows that Mr. Reich would be confirmed if he got to the Senate floor, which is why he wants to block even a hearing. He and Latin America aide Janice O'Connell bear a grudge against the Cuban-American going back to their days on opposite sides of the battle over Central America. But rather than face that difference squarely, Mr. Dodd's strategy has been to smear Mr. Reich's reputation, accusing him in a letter to this paper of, among other things, being soft on terrorism. U.S. officials say the public record refutes those charges, which may be why Mr. Dodd doesn't want Mr. Reich to get his chance to make his case in the Senate.

We keep wondering when Mr. Dodd's Democratic betters are going to call him to account for such behavior. It'd be nice to know, for example, how Florida Democrats Bob Graham and Bill Nelson feel about this treatment of a Cuban American. Tom Daschle recently met with Mr. Reich, but the majority leader has been reluctant to overrule his party's junior barons when they get the bit in their mouths.

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