To throw (someone) under the bus is an idiomatic phrase meaning to sacrifice another person (often a friend or ally), who is usually not deserving of such treatment, out of malice or for personal gain.
The phrase has been widely popularized by sports journalists since 2004 and was picked up by the mainstream media during the 2008 primary season. It has frequently been used to describe various politicians distancing themselves from unpopular or controversial figures. David Segal, a writer for The Washington Post, calls the expression "the cliché of the 2008 campaign."[1]
In a March 2008 NPR report, the linguist Geoff Nunberg noted that ‘under the bus’ "has appeared in more than 400 press stories on the campaign over the last six months."[2]
In Septuagenarian Stew (The Life of a Bum), published in 1990, the Charles Bukowski character Harry pushed his friend Monk in front of a bus, and then stole Monk's wallet while Monk lay unconscious and probably dying in the street. After taking the wallet, Harry went directly to a bar and, using Monk's money, bought himself two double whiskeys. Later, Harry went to the Groton Steak House and, again using Monk's money, bought two beers and two Porterhouse steaks with fries ("go easy on the grease").
Another relative early use is attributed by the Double-Tongued Dictionary[3] to a 1991 article in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph.[4]
Cyndi Lauper[1] is sometimes wrongly quoted[5][6] as saying in the The Washington Post in 1984: "In the rock ’n’ roll business, you are either on the bus or under it. Playing ‘Feelings’ with Eddie and the Condos in a buffet bar in Butte is under the bus." However, those lines were written by journalist David Remnick and they are not attributed in the article to Lauper or anyone else.[7]
Beginning in the late 1980s, the expression was used frequently on WROR (later re-named WBMX), a Boston radio station owned by RKO General Inc. Its first use was by General Manager Joseph M. Kelly, who said he was considering ending a network affiliation. "I'm thinking about putting The Source under the bus," Kelly said in early 1988. The phrase was picked up by station employees, and often used to describe political intrigue at the station, which was actively offered for sale as the result of an FCC decision finding RKO General unfit to hold broadcast licenses. Use of the phrase continued, both on and off the air, after the station was sold to a predecessor of American Radio Systems Corp. and its call letters changed to WBMX-FM. On-air use became more frequent after the company acquired sports talk station WEEI, when that station's personalities began to make greater use of the expression, by then ingrained in company culture as a term referring to statements and actions by someone intended to portray another in a negative light to decision-makers. This use was, in turn, picked up by print journalists who appeared on station broadcasts.