I don’t know exactly how or why it has suddenly become so popular, but can everyone please stop using any and all variations of the term “throw INSERT NAME HERE under the bus?” Yes, I’m talking to you Jonathan Alter. You, too, Maureen Dowd. I’m talking to all of you pundits and talking heads out there who have been tossing this weary figure of speech around lately as if it were a shiny new nickel. Barack Obama threw his grandmother under the bus this week during his speech on race. Roger Clemens threw his wife Debbie under the bus last month during his appearance before a congressional committee when he admitted she had used HGH. Also last month, MSNBC threw reporter David Shuster under the bus (according to Shuster, who used the dreaded phrase in an interview) after he said on air that Chelsea Clinton was being “pimped out.” And I am going to throw myself under the bus if I hear or read the stupid cliche one more time. William Safire actually addressed this hoary mass transit metaphor in his New York Times Magazine column in November 2006. Do you realize how long ago that was? Hillary Clinton hadn’t even announced she was running for president yet! (In the column, Safire quoted a slang expert who said the term had its roots in sports and cited a 1980 Washington Post article.) For God’s sake, people, we have to put an end to this now, before the fall campaign begins. You are all highly paid professionals, with college degrees and everything. Can’t you come up with something original? How about “threw her off the roof?” Or “threw him down a really steep flight of stairs?” Or “dragged him to the edge of a cliff, lifted him high over his head and hurled him screaming to a terrible death on the jagged rocks below?” Or how about “betrayed?” Yeah, that’s got a nice ring to it.
Related article: Who’s to Blame for ‘Under the Bus’?
