Heard Josh "tectonic plates" Marshall speak at a Kerry party today: [View All]

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Thought people here would like to know what he said, since he had teased, before he bailed on vacation, about a story he was working on with Wayne Madsen and a few others, that - he said - would "shift the tectonic plates in this city where I hang my hat" (meaning Washington). Just FYI, really:


It was on conference call. We were in West L.A. He's still doing the cliff-hanger thing about his "shift the tectonic plates" story. After remarks, and some opening questions from the guy who was handling the phone interview, it was opened up to more questions, so I took a crack at it. Asked him about this, specifically what the tectonic plates were, and did it have anything to do with the Plame investigation.

Here is the gist of what he said:

He expects his story to come out "in the next several weeks" (dammit!) and stated that all he was willing or able to say about it was that "it's intelligence-related," and "manipulative intelligence." He further said he wouldn't be breaking any story about the Plame business first, but that it'd probably be in some other major publication first.

He took a few more questions, and then I tried again.

He said the NYTimes had an item in the last couple of days about the investigation and that Fitzgerald was expected to be coming out with something "in the next several weeks." He said they've done a very good job keeping leaks out. He said other journalists did not feel like they were in the hot seat (even those I specifically referred to - bsides Novak - who had been given the goods). He said while some Democrats have questioned whether this is a serious investigation, he's sure it is. He also said the underlying crime here is "an intent crime." If anybody pleads the 5th, he said, it'll be hard to bring a case, and - as he put it - "I have heard that a lot of that is going on." He further said he didn't feel he had a great deal of insight into what's going on, but he said he felt it had been an aggressive investigation, and the fact that they, in effect, had bush in a deposition for 70 minutes is a sign of that. He said a lot of people thought that was just dotting i's and crossing t's, but - as this wasn't technically a deposition, but in essence to depose a president, he said you don't depose a president "just for the hell of it."

An answer, but a whole lotta non-answer at the same time. Sorry I couldn't get anything with more teeth to it.

Just my two cents here - seems to me that it might be almost a "win" for us good guys even if the reporters in question do take the 5th. The nature of taking the Fifth Amendment is to avoid self-INCRIMINATION. Repeat - self-INCRIMINATION. So if you have to take the fifth about something, it's because you have something to hide/protect/shield yourself from. It's a passive signal that something is NOT on the up-n-up. It's almost a tacit admission of guilt, even while you admit no guilt. You take the fifth and people say - oh REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLLLYYYY??????? EITHER WAY, you do not come out clean. In fact, taking the fifth, seems to me - the NON-legal NON-scholar that it makes you look as though you may be even more guilty than you, in fact, actually are. Because, after all, if you've done nothing wrong, then you don't need to seek any protection from any amendment.
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BY THE WAY... he ALSO talked about cheney a little bit, too. Said that he feels it's "as close to impossible as anything is - that he'll be taken off the ticket." For several reasons: nowadays, he said, it's pretty much impossible for an incumbent president to drop his veep from the ticket. "You just can't," as he put it. Marshall said that, objectively, cheney is "a big hindrance" to the ticket, but the republi-CON right wing sees cheney "as a symbol of their clout." The people mentioned most often as likely replacements are more centrist and therefore "would cause big problems with the right." Furthermore (and I thought THIS was MOST interesting and a VERY compelling reason, considering human nature and this kind of group we're talking about), the problem here is the "real signal" that removing cheney would clearly telegraph: that the candidacy is in trouble. Marshall said if they junked cheney, "it'd be so damaging to republi-CON morale." (All together now - BOO HOO HOO!!!!! Cue the violins!)

He made some comments about Kerry's foreign policy and potential foreign policy team - maybe Rand Beers to replace contradicta, and how it would mark an improvement over what we've got now in two ways - much more along the lines of what bush-the-first was into - as far as building international coalitions, AND ALSO because this pResident no longer has any credibility with nations or people, and nobody trusts him. Even if he "converted" and started running the Iraq fiasco and everything else in more of what the Democrats have pushed for, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, because he has still squandered any and all trust overseas. As he put it - bush "has almost no credibility with anybody in the world" - and that "most international leaders and most people just don't trust this pResident."