Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Doctrine From Hell

by digby

Matt Yglesias recommends this new book by Will Marshall. It is, apparently, a series of essays by various writers critiquing the Bush administration’s foreign policy ideology and offering an alternative path for progressives in the liberal, internationalist tradition. It sounds interesting.

Yglesias says, however, they the book never mentions Iraq and wonders how any candidate can possible expect to get away with not addressing that vital question:

Obviously, any candidate for office in those elections is going to be expected to say something about Iraq. Among other things, we have over 100,000 soldiers currently fighting a war there, which is a situation being are going to be asked to comment on. And, of course, while one’s view of the wisdom of the initial decision to invade hardly determines one’s view of what should be done from here, the questions have a certain obvious interrelationship.

But beyond that narrow question, it’s extremely hard to analyze the GOP’s “flawed ideology” without saying something cogent about George W. Bush’s most high-profile national security initiative and his own characterization of the same. Democrats have gotten a lot of mileage out of — and achieved a reasonable degree of unity by focusing on — the question of Republican incompetence in managing the occupation of Iraq. But, as Ed says, it’s vitally important for progressives to be able to transcend this critique and say something about the failure of conservative ideology and the availability of a superior progressive alternative.

That requires one to take a stand on whether or not the invasion of Iraq is consistent with the “internationalist tradition” in which most Democrats situate themselves.

For me, this is a no-brainer. You either repudiate the Bush Doctrine or you don’t. And if you don’t, you will not get my vote.

This concept of preventive war (which is a term of art that as with so many other words, they simply cynically changed to “pre-emptive — probably because it sounded more truthy.)

Let’s reveiw the Bush Doctrine. Originally it was a simple-minded “if it looks like a terrist, if it harbors a terrist, if it smells like a terrist — it’s a terrist!”

It wasn’t long before it evolved into a full-on neocon wetdream that included preventive war (called “preemption”), which they characterized as self-defense in that we had a right to defend ourselves against something somebody might want to do in the future.

In other words, you can kill your neighbor “in self defense” because you know he hates you, he has weapons in his house (and has talked about getting some more!) and you can’t just wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom souffle. Invade his home and kill him. (Oh and hold a gun to his kids’ heads and force them to pick a new daddy for the family. That way, it’ll be their decision.)

Which leads to the next part —- the United States is on orders from the Almighty to spread his gift of freedom and democracy to the world whether they want it or not. (They might get their hair mussed — a few hundred thousand, tops.)

The next pillar of the Bush Doctrine is that we can, and should, tear up any international law or treaty that we’ve signed that doesn’t suit our immediate needs. And we should work unilaterally if it’s more convenient rather than trying to get our stupid sluggish allies to pitch in. Fuck ’em. (And while we’re at it, let’s destroy every international institution we don’t care for too. It limits our freedom — and the Almighty’s against that.)

The final pillar of the Bush Doctrine is that the US must remain the world’s only superpower. Whatever it takes.

Now the democracy thing and the superpower thing aren’t new. They are part of what used to be a post cold war bipartisan consensus. I’m not sure anyone in the country knew that or that it was ever properly debated, but it’s not original. Nobody besides Junior took those concepts quite that literally, of course, but nobody else took John Wayne movies literally either.

The meat of the Bush Doctrine, and what must be repudiated by any Democrat, is the war of aggression (preventive war) part and the unilateral abrogation of all civilized law part.

It’s hard for me to believe that my country put those things on paper in the first place. And they just reiterated it last month, despite the iraq debacle, if you can believe that. Froomkin wrote about it at the time:

This morning’s news that President Bush is reasserting his doctrine of preemptive war is a bit of a surprise because, well, I think most people thought the Bush Doctrine was dead.

How can Bush still argue for attacking another country based on his suspicions about their intentions — when the first time he tried it, his public case turned out to be so utterly specious?

The idea that the American public or the international community would tolerate such behavior once again seems highly unlikely at this point in time. The American people, for one, won’t be keen on putting troops in harm’s way again on spec anytime soon.

Winning support for the application of a doctrine of preemption requires enormous credibility. It requires public trust in intelligence and motives. And that trust isn’t there.

The rearranging of the intelligence community’s deck-chairs has not resulted in any great surge of confidence in the nation’s intelligence gathering or, more importantly, any assurance that policymakers will not abuse that intelligence.

Yup. Which is why the proper approach to explaining the Democratic position on Iraq is by repudiating the Bush Doctrine, particularly as we see them ramp up for Iran.

Now, we know the Republicans will start jumping up and down like those monkeys at the end of “2001: A Space Odyssey” at the idea of Democrats fiddling with their macho foreign policy. They will try to psych out any Dem who says he or she would change it, painting him or her as a sissified Frenchie. The Democrats should not listen to this. This doctrine is what justified our invasion of Iraq and Iraq is not supported by a vast majority of the public.

Dems have to stop being afraid of this stuff. The people do not support the Bush Doctrine — it’s unamerican and people feel this on a fundamental level. They don’t think we should do it alone. They never did. And after not finding WMD after touting them as potentially being minutes away from dive bombing Manhattan with drone planes, the case that we “know” somebody is plotting against us in the future is not likely to be received with any credulity again for quite some time. (Indeed, Bush has fucked up our credibility so much that most people won’t believe our government if it said the Wednesday followed Tuesday.)

Democrats should run against the Bush Doctrine and use it to explain why we would never have gone into Iraq without it and why it will be tossed on the dungheap of history as soon as Democrats take power. (In fact, Bush is so spectularly unpopular that anything that has his name on it should be among those things Democrats run against.)

This is a bright line difference between the two parties on foreign policy, it seems to me, most importantly the unilateralism and the “pre-emptions” portions. Those two things are going to make being an American a very dangerous thing to be in this world if we don’t stop it now. (You don’t even want to think about this doctrine in the context of nukes — unless you are Joe Klein, of course, whose only problem with it is that Junior isn’t the right guy to pre-emptively drop one.)

I’m hoping that this isn’t even slightly controversial among Democrats in congress. Is that being naive?

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Oh NO!

by digby

Howard Fineman writes:

The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a Democratic Congress would look like, and to portray that possibility, in turn, as prelude to the even more nightmarish scenario: the return of a Democrat (Hillary) to the White House.

Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.

… before this election season is over, Republican and conservative voters are going to know a lot about Conyers. To hear the GOP tell it, the impeachment of the president will be the No. 1 priority if Conyers gets his say, which of course Rep. Nancy Pelosi will be only too happy to give him. The aim will be to rally the GOP base with talk of a political apocalypse.

The issue of gay marriage will play a part. So far this year, at least seven states will have on their ballots measures to ban same-sex marriage: Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. There are citizen-led campaigns seeking to add the issue to ballots in Arizona, Colorado and Illinois.

[…]

Bush and Rove are daring the Democrats to turn the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden as head of the CIA into a fight over the president’s secret eavesdropping program. That’s a fight they think they can win politically, by turning a legitimate constitutional issue into another Us vs. Them morality play.

Can someone please tell me how this differs from any Republican campaign of the last 25 years? Bush was at 70% in the last mid-term and the whole campaign was about how Democrats like Tom Daschle and Max Cleland were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They always say we are going to raise taxes. They always say we are degenerates. If they can find a dark-skinned boogeyman, they’ll use that too.

The only new thing in this is the psych out in which they are supposedly “daring” the Dems to make a big deal out of the domestic spying stuff. You certainly can’t say they don’t have chutzpah. They are barely breathing and they are still issuing threats. (And the Dems should really wonder why they are so vocal about this. You’d think if it was such a winner for them they’d just let the Dems run with it, wouldn’t you?)

Overall, this is just a standard issue, off the rack Republican campaign. I’m sure this one will be even more excessively dirty than usual. And if they lose they will howl to high heaven that the election was stolen by illegal immigrant voter fraud. SOP.

Hopefully, the Dems are finally confident enough (31%!) to run their own campaigns and not worry about this stale, negative GOP cant. It’s all they know how to do. There’s nothing we can do about it.

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Preparing The Ground

by digby

I’m sure that most of you read Daily Kos and have come across this diary by thereisnospoon, but if you don’t you really should check it out.

Do you see how this works? Systematically, piece by piece, the GOP takes what had been considered impossibly radical positions and makes them worthy of consideration just by talking about them–and then makes what had been considered outside possibilities truly possible. Now, I happen to believe that legalization of homeschooling is a good thing (though there should be oversight)–others may disagree.

But the important thing to remember is that the Republicans are carrying out this same exercise with every public policy debate today–from invading Iran to making birth control illegal to eliminating Social Security. The once unthinkable becomes possible–and they don’t care if they take some heat for it initially.

I would love to see bloggers on our side engage this issue because I think we might just be able to influence how certain ideas bubble up into the zeitgeist over the long haul, and this is a very interesting way to think about it.

I have long felt that one of the things the right does well is prepare the ground for ideas that are not considered mainstream. The ideas themselves … well, that’s another story and their ideas often fail on their own merit. But they are very good at bringing their ideas into mainstream dialog and making them sound comfortably familiar. And with each success, they move the goalposts farther to the right.

I was struck by this when I was reading an old article about Newt Gingrich from the mid-80’s. The writer went on at some length about his crazy, freaky idea to change social security to a privatized “IRA” type system. The tone was of stark disbelief that anyone could come up with such a crackpot scheme. But, of course, this idea became quite mainstream within a little more than a decade.

I just think there is merit in thinking about the right tactics for advancing big ideas that may not be on the radar screen right now, but could be if we are tactically intelligent about advancing them. And I think the blogosphere may be a good place to get these ideas percolating.

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Extremes

by digby

I love Will Bunch’s post about Democrats being the new “silent majority.” Even if it weren’t true, which it is, it is just a terrific way to frame our political situation right now.

Many of my fellow baby boomer liberals believe that the country recoils from extremes and they are right. But they are stuck in a time warp. They don’t see that in 2006, the extremes don’t look like this:

They look like this:

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Hit After Golden Hit

by digby

Atrios is doing a fun series on Richard Cohen’s greatest hits. If you haven’t been over there to read them, check them out. The man has a very interesting history. He thinks racial profiling is perfectly understandable — and really gets upset when his readers aren’t perfectly polite in their disagreement with him on that. He thinks that women are asking for it. They should be aware that it’s their fault if dirty old men like Cohen lose control when they think a woman is dressed provocatively in the office. (That’s why Allah invented the Burka!)

Yet people in Washington think of Richard Cohen and others like him are the kind of liberal whom they can really respect — not that icky uppity kind who insist that racism is wrong or that disgusting pigs like Richard Cohen don’t get to dictate the office dress code in order to keep themselves from acting out. This filters into the elected Democrat mindset. They spend time in the capital, they absorb this stuff.

And to the extent it filters out to the country and the media, people see a schizopherenic vision of liberals — wingnut radio says we are shrieking hippie communists who “smell” (a common rightwing moronic slogan) while the mainstream media reveres milquetoast apologists whom nobody really understands or respects except the beltway establishment. It’s a problem. And it’s a problem that winning this next election won’t solve.

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That’s Our Fratboy

by digby

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report caught this little gem. Those fancy pants Connecticut blue bloods sure do have lousy manners:

The AP ran a report last night on Bush visiting Florida to tout his Medicare prescription drug plan. It was mostly boilerplate stuff, with one exception.

He stopped by Broward Community College, where government officials set up tents and tables with laptops to help dozens of seniors there choose among the myriad plan options available.

Bush visited with some waiting in a courtyard where Frank Sinatra’s “Young At Heart” played on the loudspeakers, then he went indoors where people were looking over the laptops. He walked around giving handshakes and hugs to those who rose for his entrance, and greeted a man who remained sitting in a wheelchair with, “You look mighty comfortable.” (emphasis added)

Now, I realize the president was probably kidding. For all I know, the senior citizen laughed.

But I have to wonder what on earth Bush was thinking. Maybe the president has never had a friend or family member confined to a wheelchair, but as a rule, noting how “comfortable” they look is rarely a friendly way to start a conversation.

No it isn’t. But then neither is noting someone’s baldness or that they’ve gained weight and Junior does that all the time too. It’s his way of putting people off balance and getting everyone on his side to pile on another.

There’s an interesting simple psychology involved in such things. If someone can coerce those in a group to help him attack a single member they become his accomplices. For instance, getting everybody in the press corps to laugh at a reporter’s baldness makes those reporters part of the president’s gang. And, of course, it intimidates them. If they stray, they too will be subject to that kind of public humiliation. It’s the evil fratboy theory of social relations, very primitive stuff.

That Bush may be reduced to plying this unconsciously with senior citizens in wheelchairs is not surprising, given his poll numbers.

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For History’s Sake

by digby

Ms. Harris was on hand this morning to meet President Bush as he stopped in Tampa en route to a Medicare event in this nearby, senior-rich town — just one day after Governor Jeb Bush said publicly that he did not believe Ms. Harris could win against the Democratic incumbent Senator here, Bill Nelson.

[…]

After saying hello to his brother and straightening his tie, the president shook hands with Ms. Harris and spoke with her for roughly 30 seconds, with Ms. Harris talking far more than the president, who did not kiss her or put his arm around her — or do anything more than pat her on the back.

An aide to the president said later that they were only speaking about “the weather,” and a spokesman for Ms. Harris refused to divulge the details of the conversation.

She knows a whole lot of details about what went down in Florida in 2000.

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Getting Played

by digby

I certainly hope that Democrats aren’t going to follow John Dickerson’s tepid analysis that concludes they shouldn’t mention investigations or risk losing in November. They are being played.

Over at Political Animal, Zachary Roth writes:

It’s also worth noting that Republican attempts to highlight the investigations issue have come almost exclusively in fundraising emails. In other words, they’re using it as a tactic to gin up their plugged-in supporters, but not, so far, as a part of their broader message to ordinary voters. And when you think about it, you can see why they might not be too enthusiastic about a campaign message that draws voters’ attention, even obliquely, to the slew of scandals and screwups of the Bush years. After all, it’s not exactly inconceivable that voters might welcome the prospect of a party pledging to look into, and then fix, the policies of a president with a 32 percent approval rating.

Ya think? The Republicans are in free fall. Considering that, is it not possible that the American people would like to find out what happened to the billions missing in Iraq? That they would be happy to see the congress exercize its oversight of the executive branch? That looking into the hanky panky leading us into a dramatically unpopular war is good for the country? Hello?

Many in the establishment believe that Democrats are in grave danger if they ever show they give a damn about anything. It’s one of the reasons why people don’t feel anything for the Democrats. And for some, the strategy is always the same no matter what the circumstances: when the Republicans are popular, don’t make waves. When the Republicans are unpopular, don’t make waves.

But think about this. Do the Republicans really want all these scandals being brought up constantly during the campaign? I don’t think so. That’s why they are trying to manipulate the Democrats into keeping quiet about them. Any six year old could see through this cheap ploy.

Update: Yglesias has more on this, here. He makes the interesting point that “One of the main things those people might be hoping for from a Democratic congress would be a check on Bush’s power. Indeed, many of them may not be very interested in a progressive agenda for America at all, just scared of where the current crew is heading things. By promising oversight, Pelosi is re-iterating that though you can’t vote the unpopular Bush out of office, you can vote in a congress that will keep him under control.”

Update II: Billmon says Rove is smoking crack if he thinks ginning up the wiretapping is going to work:

The point is, when you get down to 31% approval in a Gallup Poll, and your disapproval rating is trying to poll vault over the record high set by Richard Nixon just before he resigned in disgrace, it means the American people essentially think you’re the political equivalent of crab lice. At that point, they’re probably going to hate anything and everything you do — even if they actually agree with it — just because you’re the one doing it.

Update III: Harold Meyerson writes:

…to stave off the specter of Democratic rule, Rove has decided that the only way to rally the Republican base is to invoke the specter of Democratic rule. Democrat John Conyers, who would become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has spoken of investigating the president for high crimes and misdemeanors. Henry Waxman and Ted Kennedy will get subpoena power if the Democrats win both houses. Unspecified horrors lurk behind every corner if the Democrats take control and hold hearings about the administration’s relations with the oil and pharmaceutical industries. A sea of partisan vendetta, Republicans prophesy, stretches to the horizon if the Democrats are allowed to win.

As a strategy, this has its shortcomings. It’s not clear how many independents, or even conservatives, will warm to a campaign that focuses on forestalling congressional oversight — not with gas prices soaring and the American military bogged down in a war with an increasingly undefinable mission.

Again, I think Rove is trying to mau-mau the Democrats and getting the always compliant press to help him do it. He’s shaping the battlefield the way he wants it. It won’t work unless Democrats take the bait.

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All That’s Left Is Our Friendship

by digby

I have had a few conversations and email exchanges over the past few months in which we all sort wondered whether it was such a good idea for Bush and Cheney to be so publicly derisive of the CIA. Calling them incompetent and lazy and (*gasp*) liberal just seemed like stupid thing to do with an agency filled with spies.

Then I read this today, from Tim Grieve in Salon and I just have to wonder…

The White House said Monday that it intends to hire as the No. 2 man at the CIA a former agency official who quit in 2004 in a dispute with Porter Goss. As admissions of mistakes go, this is a pretty big one — even if no one at the White House will actually admit it.

Stephen Kappes, the CIA’s deputy director for operations, resigned from the agency in November 2004 after Patrick Murray — a former Hill staffer who was serving as Goss’ chief of staff at the CIA — ordered him to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Murray’s order to Kappes came after Sulick had confronted Murray about a threat Murray had made to another agency official.

The threat? That the agency official would be held responsible if anything from the personnel file of the “newly appointed executive director” made it into the media. And the “newly appointed executive director”? He wasn’t identified in the Post’s account back in 2004, but we all know his name now: Dusty Foggo, who resigned from the CIA yesterday amid a corruption probe.

[…]

So where are we today? Goss is gone. Murray is presumably gone. Foggo is gone. And the White House is trumpeting the fact that Kappes will be coming back. “The move was seen as a direct repudiation of Goss’ leadership and as an olive branch to CIA veterans disaffected by his 18-month tenure,” the Post says this morning.

Holding out an “olive branch”? From here, it looks more like “falling on your sword.” The White House may indeed be interested in repudiating Goss, but let’s not forget who forced his brand of “leadership” on the CIA in the first place.

Just what happened to make the white house change it’s approach on this when it refuses to do the kind of things that might boost them in the polls and help their guys win in the fall is anybody’s guess. But you have to wonder if it went something like this:

GEARY

I didn’t do anything.

TOM

It’s okay. You’re very lucky — my brother FREDO operates this place, he was called before anyone. If this had happened someplace else, we couldn’t’ve helped you..

GEARY

I — when I woke up, I was on the floor — and I don’t know how it happened.

TOM

You can’t remember?

GEARY

I passed out.

[He stands up and moves over the bed where we see a bloody dead girl.]

I — I’ll fix it.

[He unties the girl’s hand from the bed post.]

Just a game.

[He takes a towel and begins to wipe up the blood that is all over her. He looks at the towel and wipes off his hands.]

Jesus, Jesus.

[He begins to cry. As he does, TOM looks over at NERI who is wiping his hands in the bathroom.]

Jesus, God — Oh, God. I don’t know — and I can’t understand — why I can’t remember.

TOM

You don’t have to remember — just do as I say. We’re putting a call into your office — explain that you’ll be there tomorrow afternoon — you decided to spend the night at Michael Corleone’s house in Tahoe — as his guest.

GEARY

I do remember that she was laughing…we’d done it before — and I know that I couldn’t’ve hurt — that girl

TOM

This girl has no family — nobody knows that she worked here. It’ll be as if she never existed. All that’s left is our friendship.

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Spook Kabuki

by digby

Now here’s something to make you scratch your head. Jason Vest over at the Project For Government Oversight blog points out that the congress always intended for the CIA director or his deputy to be someone from the military, active or retired, and until recently it was actually explicit:

First, pertinent legislative history about intelligence chiefs: Since the CIA’s beginning, it has been, as our august legislators put it, “the sense of Congress” that “it [wa]s desirable” to have as either Director or Deputy Director “a commissioned officer of the Armed forces, whether in active or retired status,” or someone who has “by training or experience, an appreciation of military intelligence activities and requirements.” Congress specifically stated that only one position could be filled by an active duty officer, and further mandated that such an officer be removed from the Defense Department’s chain of command.

In 2004, when the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act severed the dual DCIA/DCI roles (acronym translation: where the head of the CIA also headed the entire intelligence community) and created the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Congress amended the existing statute, and applied the language to the new DNI and his Deputy. For some reason, however, Congress neglected to re-apply the same language to the new CIA Director and Deputy Director positions (indeed, Congress actually forgot to re-authorize the Deputy Director position altogether). But last year–in addition to correcting that little boo-boo–the Senate intelligence committee suddenly decided, after all these years, that the top two CIA officials should only hail from “civilian life.” (Of 19 CIA directors, six have been active-duty flag officers, five have had some previous military service as commissioned officers, and three have previous served as intelligence officers.)

Isn’t that interesting? From what we have been hearing, Hayden being a member of the active duty military is unprecedented. I confess that although I knew several directors had military titles, I assumed they were retired. WTF?

But the point of Vest’s post is not actually this interesting new spin point, it’s that the congress has been, typically, rubber stamping every intelligence function the pentagon wanted, particularly empowering the rightwing ideologue Stephen Cambone. This entire debate is some sort of kabuki.

But even more galling about the sudden flurry of Congressional concern about the Pentagon’s influence over intelligence is that the biggest enabler of expanded military intelligence power has been Congress itself. The Armed Services’ committees happily (and quietly) acceded to Donald Rumsfeld’s request to create a Deputy Undersecretary for Intelligence in 2002; in 2003, the Senate committee took about 15 minutes to confirm Stephen Cambone after a farcical hearing. Since then, Cambone’s set to building himself an empire that’s rife with red flags, ranging from unresolved Abu Ghraib related matters, to sketchy overseas covert units to troubling domestic intelligence activities. The state of things at the miltiary’s National Ground Intelligence Center hasn’t exactly inspired confidence.

[…]

There are no shortage of reasons to be leery of Hayden as potential DCIA. But if Congress is really worried about expanding military control of intelligence, they might want to consider the performance not of four-star generals who’ve been statutorily taken out of the military flow chart, but of certain Pentagon civilian officials who direct military intelligence policy and generals under them.

[more]

Now check this out from Dennis Hastert today (via Roll Call):

Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has come out against the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head the CIA, calling the ousting of former Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) from the agency’s top post “a power grab” by John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.
Hastert’s opposition to Hayden is not based on any personal reservations about the nominee. Rather, Hastert is concerned that installing a top-ranking military official at the “CIA would give too much influence over the U.S. intelligence community to the Pentagon.”

“I don’t know anything about him. He has never darkened my doorstep,” Hastert told reporters on Monday in Aurora, Ill., when asked about Hayden. “I don’t think a military guy should be head of CIA, frankly.”

Hastert added: “I don’t oppose him, I don’t know anything about him.” Hayden has been serving as Negroponte’s deputy following a six-year stint as head of the National Security Agency.

Hastert’s aides later expanded on his comments. “The Speaker does not believe that a military person should be leading the CIA, a civilian agency,” said Ron Bonjean, Hastert’s spokesman.

Hastert also said Negroponte stopped by his office Wednesday and made no mention of the fact that Goss, who served in the House with Hastert for 16 years, would be stepping down as CIA director two days later.

“It looks like a power grab by Mr. Negroponte,” said Hastert.

I don’t pretend to understand the byzantine maneuverings of the spooks, the pentagon and the congress on this issue. But you would think that somebody in the press would have noticed that this argument about Hayden being in uniform is bizarre considering that six Directors of 19 have been active duty and that until recently the congress explicitly desired a military man in charge, wouldn’t you?

And this caterwauling about the pentagon having too much control of intelligence is obvious bullshit since they’ve been giving Rumsfeld everything he wants in that area for years. There may be a turf war going on, but it looks like there’s a very active CYA operation in the congress as well.

This story gets stranger by the day.

If there are any mainstream reporters out there reading this, you should make it a habit of checking out Vest’s stuff. He consistently sees things that others in the field do not.

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