The Froomkin Test

In a previous post, I mentioned Froomkin's suggestion that when Bush says "Of course" that it gives away a "whopper". I believe, after review of the transcript from last night, that he's on to something. It's clearly a flag of either a lie, or a proposition that Bush feels unconfident about. Here are the examples:

"Of course, we're going to find Osama bin Laden." Though he has managed to elude us for years now, and seems to have more people helping him than he did before...

"Of course, I listen to our generals." Though Shinseki was at the meeting I just referred to, and told me there weren't enough, based on his experience in Kosovo.

"Secondly, of course we've been involved with Iran. I fully understand the threat. And that's why we're doing what he suggested we do: Get the Brits, the Germans and the French to go make it very clear to the Iranians that if they expect to be a party to the world to give up their nuclear ambitions. We've been doing that." Though we ourselves haven't done much, and I can't do Europe as well as he would, since Chirac knows I hate his guts, Tony's a bit standoffish since the WMD story came out.

"Of course, we're paying attention to these. It's a great question about Iran. That's why in my speech to the Congress I said: There's an "Axis of Evil," Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and we're paying attention to it. And we're making progress." Progress, yeah, that's the ticket. We're makin' progress.

"And of course he's going to raise your taxes." I hope they believe this as much as I want them to. That promise he made looking straight in the camera was good; I wish I'd done that.