Blue Smoke and Mirrors

Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Bartleby.com
Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER: 1415
AUTHOR: Jimmy Breslin (1929–  )
QUOTATION: All political power is primarily an illusion…. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.
ATTRIBUTION: JIMMY BRESLIN, How the Good Guys Finally Won, Notes from an Impeachment Summer, pp. 33–34 (1975).
The phrase is usually quoted as “blue smoke and mirrors.”
SUBJECTS: Politics
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Blue smoke and mirrors : how Reagan won and why Carter lost the election of 1980
Author: Jack Germond; Jules Witcover
Publisher: New York : Viking, ©1981.
Edition/Format:  Book : English
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Magic—or blue smoke and mirrors? : reflections on new technologies and trends in the political consultant trade
Author: Larry Sabato; David Beiler; Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies.
Publisher: Washington, DC : Annenberg Washington Program, Communications Policy Studies, Northwestern University, ©1988.
Edition/Format:  Book : English
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Blue Smoke and Mirrors - Some of the tobacco industry’s assertions about the economic benefits the industry provides are coming under heavy fire.
Author: Peter H Stone
Publisher: Washington, D.C., National Journal Group Inc.
Edition/Format:  Article : English
Publication: National journal. 28, no. 18, (1996): 1016
Database: ArticleFirst