Leadership Quote by Ellen Tauscher

“Pull the wool over our eyes” is doing heavy lifting here: it’s homespun, a little indignant, and deliberately populist. Tauscher isn’t just alleging wrongdoing; she’s framing the administration’s behavior as a con. That metaphor casts citizens as the cheated party, while positioning the speaker as the one yanking the blindfold off. For a politician, it’s a tactical move: it converts a complicated national-security debate into a simple moral narrative about deception and accountability.

The phrase “possibly illegal” is the lawyerly hinge that keeps the accusation potent without straying into defamation. It signals seriousness, invites investigation, and gives cover against the inevitable pushback that critics are “anti-security.” The charge of “distract[ing] the public” adds a second layer: even if you can’t yet prove illegality, you can accuse them of manipulation. That subtext is about power - who controls the story when the facts are classified, the stakes are high, and the public can’t easily verify what’s being done in its name.

The context is the post-9/11 surveillance controversy, when the Bush administration’s warrantless NSA program became a flashpoint for civil liberties, executive authority, and congressional oversight. Tauscher’s intent is to pry the issue out of the “trust us” zone and into a legitimacy crisis: if the government is spying domestically and managing perception at the same time, the scandal isn’t only surveillance. It’s the attempted insulation of the presidency from democratic scrutiny.