7,000-mile screwdriver
n.— «As I think most of you know from our efforts on the USS Cole, the chief of naval operations, secretary of the navy, both for good, legal reasons of not interfering with ongoing investigations from Washington, and for practical reasons of the difficulty of adjusting things with a 7,000-mile screwdriver, do not reach out into the midst of the investigation and pull back information prematurely.» —“Pentagon Holds News Briefing on Submarine Collision” by Steve Pietropaoli CNN Feb. 15, 2001. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Katie in Everett, Washington, is curious about the expression If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. What is a tinker? She heard this phrase on the television series The Gilded Age, in response to a character who...