It's not hard to tell when President Bush is really, really serious about getting a particular message out.

He repeats it, over and over again.

But it's unusual even for him to say the same thing seven times in one short speech.

That's what he did yesterday, in Oak Ridge, Tenn., asserting that because of his foreign policy initiatives and the war on terror, "the American people are safer." (Here's the text.)

Bush said it so many times that CBS and ABC both spliced a sort of dance mix and inserted it into their reports on the evening news: "The American people are safer. . . . The American people are safer. . . . The American people are safer."

Here's the problem for Bush, though: A lot of Americans don't feel safer -- more than 50 percent, in some polls.

And while Bush did undeniably remove Saddam Hussein from power, last week's Senate intelligence committee report thoroughly undermined the argument that Hussein posed an immediate threat.

But here's the good news for Bush: When you're the president, and you repeat something often enough, a lot of people do start to believe it -- unless of course the press is constantly, doggedly reminding people it isn't true.

Case in point: The August 2003 Washington Post poll that found that 69 percent of Americans thought it at least likely that Hussein had a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- at least partly the result of months of suggestions from the Bush administration. (New York Times)