Maybe it is no more, cast in ancient idiom, than a familiar blatant assertion that, "God told me...".. The dream of governance lets the new king imagine what his reign would be like.
They were not buying José Mourinho's familiar assertion, delivered this time on the banks of the Bosphorus, that his is a team of novices.
Neither could the foundation's research team find any evidence for the familiar assertion that trips off the tongue of margarine manufacturers and apostles of government health advice, that eating polyunsaturated fat offers heart protection.
That is encapsulated in the theme of the consumer and trade advertising and promotion campaign for Real Simple, which rewrites the familiar assertion that "Less is more" to declare: "Do less.
It has also unleashed predictable crank abuse from the more extreme Corbyn admirers and the familiar assertions that Khan owes his victory in London to Corbyn - a highly debatable point, not least given that Khan almost daily distanced himself from Corbyn during the campaign while Goldsmith strenuously and wholly falsely strove to portray him as the Labour leader's poodle.
Speaking at a Republican rally in Iowa on Saturday, Mr Trump was met with a silent protest as he repeated his now-familiar assertion that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to enter the US.
He had gone on state TV earlier to repeat the now-familiar assertion that opposition sabotage rather than a lack of maintenance had caused the afternoon blackout, saying hackers had attacked computers at the country's main hydroelectric dam.
Sputtering and high-strung, April tiptoes up to the edge of self-assertion, and then falls backward into a familiar pit of shame, self-doubt and frustration.
But the back-and-forth had a familiar feel, as the Romney camp matched Mr. Biden's assertions that their candidate wanted to recycle discredited and outdated policies with claims that the president was presiding over an America in decline.
In fact, this has become such a familiar refrain that it is easy to lose sight of what a radical assertion it is.
Mr. Mugabe's half-hour speech employed a familiar mix of accusations that the white West planned to recolonize Zimbabwe and assertions that the nation's economic and social problems would soon be fixed.
