Tough-guy credentials established.
For all of his car-guy credentials, he was educated not as a designer or engineer, but as a salesman.
Mitt Romney, eager to burnish his tough guy credentials, offered a characteristic semantic dodge: "Enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used.
To do that, in the face of resistance from many more settlers than were in Gaza, Mr Olmert may need to establish his own tough-guy credentials.
He has since evolved from all-American boy next door to menschy goofball in a series of roles that have bolstered his guy's-guy credentials.
"How weird do you think it must be to be a rock star?" Mr. Ritchie asked, as if to establish his regular-guy credentials.
Quentin Tarantino has denied claims by the New York Post that he lied about time spent in jail to boost his "tough guy" credentials.
As far back as the earliest primaries, the campaign went back and forth between embracing the crowds to show off Obama's mass appeal and shunning them to emphasize his regular-guy credentials.
Whenever America's good-guy credentials were challenged, the Soviets often seemed to make our point for us -- in places like Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, Poland in 1981, or aboard KAL 007 over Sakhalin in 1983.
Further burnishing his good guy credentials.
