Nothing to see here. Keep calm. Everything's under control.
The trouble with such reassurances is they convey the opposite. There usually is something "to see", which leads us to feel anything but "calm", and realise things are not "under control" after all.
Take Malcolm Turnbull's handling of the dual-citizenship fiasco.
Admittedly, this would have wrong-footed the most adroit PM.
But his handling of it has been an unhappy mix of tentative and punchy - from accepting Matt Canavan's ministerial resignation while retaining Fiona Nash and Barnaby Joyce, to his ebullience in telling Parliament that the deputy PM was "qualified to sit in the House and the High Court will so hold".
He wasn't. It didn't.
Political problems are one thing. Making them worse through the extremes of panic or denial, is quite another. That's what really erodes confidence in leaders - failure to get out in front to minimise unavoidable problems and to maximise any strengths.
Turnbull has probably had more problems than most, but the material damage to his prestige, arguably, has come from his responses.
Monday's blue-sky announcement cancelling a week of Parliament, stands out.
With unsourced leadership rumblings, Nationals pushing an inquiry into the banks (embarrassing), and Turnbull already down two MPs (Joyce and John Alexander), the temptation to halve the remaining fortnight was obvious. Doing so wouldn't just limit Turnbull's exposure in parliament but in a tetchy party room too. And, crucially, it would delay the deadline for sole citizenship declarations from December 1 to December 5. Important given the crumbling majority.
Of course the public justification was none of these but rather an ethereal machinery-of-parliament case that nobody bought. At best, this was a solution searching for a problem. At worst, it was a wounded government running scared from both the opposition and its own malcontents. From strength to weakness, licketty-split.
Or take the marriage survey. Leaving aside the public dividend, the result provided some much-needed Liberal leverage for Turnbull. In Tony Abbott's safe Liberal seat, 75 per cent of electors voted "yes". It was a similar story around the country. This was Turnbull's chance to boldly assert ownership - to declare that he speaks for the modern Liberal base, not Abbott.
Instead, what emerged was the quasi-Hamlet aspect of the Turnbull leadership (mark II). A leader worried about getting too far out in front of colleagues - as he had in 2009 - even with the thumping mandate of Australian voters and of cultural Liberals in particular.
On Monday night Turnbull lauded his "measured leadership" and "steady hands at the helm".
"Even if it does result in people asking me, as recently as tonight, why am I so calm?"
Why are they asking that, PM?
