Danny Williams explodes in anger and attacks the person, whenever a question gets close to the truth, not close to his family and friends.
That's his tell. The dead giveaway.
For the federal Connies - not Tories, that party died two years ago - the "tell" may well be the Sun chain.
Take a skim through the columnists online and look at all the columns that either praise Steve Harper (like the bitter Sheila Copps), attack Liberals (the ever-dyspeptic John "More TUMS" Crosbie), or in this case, the one where Greg Weston laments the hard position in which the Conservatives find themselves on an issue like gun control.
He does a fine job of claiming that the Prime Minister's announcement really isn't changing anything at all and is really designed to lure Conservatives into defending guns and being therefore, somehow, scary.
Geez, Greg. I love conspiracy theories. They make great movies - where the key ingredient is a suspension of disbelief. In the real world, there is much less conspiracy.
On the handgun issue, the Liberals have jumped in front of an issue in metro Toronto and did so on a day when news would be tuned to the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's shooting.
The positioning put the Liberals firmly in control of a Connie issue - law and order - and did so in a way that grabbed extra support from recollections of a tragedy involving a nutbar and a handgun.
That's smart politics.
The Connies only find themselves thinking about their position because they got outflanked. The instinct will be to argue against gun control which, as the recent policy convention showed, is where the majority of Connie delegates were headed. They took out a simple statement in favour of the sort of licensing system this country has had for rifles and shotguns since the 1970s and for handguns since the 1930s. In its place would be a "screening system" that in all likelihood will have some pretty big mesh in the screen.
At the end, the Conservatives are left pretty much as they were headed. Polls clearly show the public doesn't trust Stephen Harper when he tells them that Connies have moved to the centre on social policy issues (except for equal marriage). Unable to think outside the box, the Connie strategists keep putting front and centre one Stephen Harper, the embodiment of Canadians unease about the Connies.
So they suffer at the polls.
And rely on shop-worn messages that the Liberals are all about spin.
Then Paul Martin announces a policy on a precious Connie cause and take control of an issue that used to be purely a conservative one. Gun control appeals in urban Canada and while it sometimes ruffles in rural areas, this particular ban won't affect too many.
It will also resonate with people in places like Newfoundland and Labrador. The reason is simple. Handguns, restricted but legal weapons - Weston is wrong on that point - are seized at the home of a young man in St. John's. Tazers, a prohibited weapon, turn up in another police search.
In other words, as much as Connies will claim that legitimate handgun owners are the only ones to suffer under a ban, the truth is that the once safe system of handgun ownership in this country is slowly crumbling.
Legally acquired handguns are finding their way to the underworld through thefts or loss.
And that's what makes a simple "screening system" totally inadequate to address the criminal use of firearms - both illegally obtained ones and legally purchased ones that are diverted to the streets.
There are still many ways to refine Canada's gun control system but the Conservative Party policy, heavily influenced by a handful of anti-gun control types is not the way to go.
On this issue, the tell to watch is not only in the reaction of the Connie-friendly media. It's also in the movement in the polls.
That's the "tell" of public opinion, the one that will count in January.
