Throw under the bus

Sportscasters, political pundits and social media propagators have become enamored with reporting about people thrown under buses. No physical violence has actually been perpetrated, of course. The phrase is only used metaphorically. But how did it start—and when will it end?

Merriam Webster’s website suggests an innocent enough British pre-origin in 1971 when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

With tongue in cheek, Hugh MacPherson wrote in “The Spectator,” “There is an amusing little parlour game much favoured by politicians. It is called “Let’s kill the Leader,” and, when played by Labour loyalists, it begins ‘Supposing Harold Wilson were to go under a bus...’”

Note the phrase posits no causative agent, no one throwing or pushing, just the nebulous speculation that things might be different if the party leader were no longer around. There is, of course, a certain weightiness to the supposed vehicle being not a car but a bus - which in London no doubt meant a double-decker bus.

The saying apparently gained popularity in British political usage, because in 1978 an article in Boston, Massachusetts’ “Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly” once again toyed with possibilities if then Prime Minister Jim Callaghan “were, in the British phrase, to fall under a bus.”

The non-violent nature of the bus phrase was clarified in a 1980 issue of London’s “The Financial Times.” Referring to an upcoming election in which some people hoped British Labour Party Leader Michael Foot would no longer retain power, the article read, “Some still pin their hopes on the ‘under the bus’ theory which has Mr. Foot being forced by ill health—or just the pressures of the job—to give way to Mr. Healy…”

When the phrase journeyed to America, however, it became considerably more lethal. No longer buffered by speculation and hinted “what ifs,” it now unequivocally referred to a deliberate attempt to betray someone (usually a former friend). Throwing under the bus was intended to deflect blame from the thrower onto the person thrown. While sports continued to have its share of thrown athletes, the phrase really flourished in the political realm.

As Washington Post’s David Segal expressed it, “Because reporters and op-ed writers love the rampaging four-wheeler motif as much as pols [politicians], the path to the White House is now littered with figurative roadkill.”

As to the question of when will the overused phrase finally screech to a halt, Segal’s article was entitled, “Time to Hit the Brakes on That Cliché.” It ran in the Washington Post’s May 1, 2008 issue. So as the roadkill continues to pile even higher, the regrettable answer is ‘not any time soon.’