Posted on 05/04/2005 11:31:48 AM PDT by pookie18
A left-wing website rescues clueless Democrats in the confirmation fight.
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.
Holy Crap .. this women is dangerous
Why haven't we heard about her before now??
I can't copy & paste .. but Janice O'Connell gives a speech
scroll down to page 4
http://www.transafricaforum.org/reports/afrocuba_print.pdf
Un-freaking-believable! Those people have been in office too long.
Of course Dodd's constituents would Never vote him out of office. They'd have to memorize a different name on the ballot, and that's just too complicated for their little pea brains to grasp!
This is kind of freaking me out, mainly because she LOOKS so much like Mary Mapes of CBS fame!
Did you hear Otto Reich on Brit's show? He said she personally has ruined many a career!
John Bolton vs. the Moral Cowards
The Senate confirmation process needs to be reformed.
BY OTTO REICH
Thursday, April 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006556
George Soros behind
Bolton opposition?
Billionaire globalist said bankrolling effort against Bush nominee
http://www.autentico.org/oa09597.php
(snip)
Other State Department careerists don't seem to understand that Bill Clinton no longer is president. Jim Carragher, coordinator for Cuban affairs, and Ambassador John F. Maisto, special assistant to the president for Latin America, still lean toward rapprochement with an unreformed Cuba.
Like-minded officials include Kevin Whitaker, deputy director of the Cuban desk, and his wife, Betsy, who works in public diplomacy. Many of these officials believe presidents come and go but Janice O'Connell lasts forever. O'Connell is a veteran Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer who (sponsored by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut) relentlessly presses for normalization with Castro.
http://www.canadiangrassroots.ca/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=6868
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.
Fidel Castro - Cuba
various LINKS to articles | April 14, 2002
Posted on 04/14/2002 7:36:10 AM EDT by Cincinatus' Wife
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/665733/posts?page=42#42
Chris Dodd, Aristide's Best Friend in Washington-Why is Conn senator defending violence in Haiti?
Wall St Journal ^ | August 1, 2003 | MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/956329/posts
read later about the little POS.
"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"
Surely she is will to produce just one of these threatening letters.
DailyKos=Daily Coup
bump!
And also China, which has been intricately involved in both Cuba and Venezuela, not to mention China needs oil, too.
And behind curtain number three, Iran.
Sounds like she's a case officer working for Cuban intel 'service,' just trying to fix what ails Castro, or even what irks him. Wonder if she listens to "all numbers, all the time radio."
PING
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping piasa.
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