Who coined the phrase "Thrown Under The Bus"?

I think it originates from Ken Kesey's cross country trip from the West Coast to New York with a lot of his friends. Kesey had to go to New York for a new novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion". They traveled across the country on a bus they named "Furthur" (as in further). One of the sayings they developed along the way was that a person was either 'on the bus or off the bus', relating to a person's attitude - was the person part of the group and adding to their experience or was the person more interested in doing his own thing. (This from Tom Wolff's 'Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' which documented the trip across country).

Ken Kesey became a cult idol, especially among rock musicians. The saying evolved to a person being so not 'on the bus' that they flat out 'got run over by the bus', mainly referring to a person who was a 'on the bus' wannabe, but didn't understand the bus - i.e. the rock musician who trashed his career by instantly becoming more interested in drugs, booze, and sex than in actually making any worthwhile music. In other words, the rock musician that just couldn't handle the scene.

With rock becoming more mainstream, even among lawyers and politicians, the saying evolved to throwing a person off the bus because circumstances meant the person's presence could only hurt the group regardless of his intentions and eventually to a more cold blooded variation - probably originated by the bitter members unfairly blamed for all of a groups shortcomings as they were tossed off the bus. They went into the group with the best intentions, but got chewed up by the scene ('run over by the bus') thanks to someone else actively making sure they were chewed up ('thrown under the bus' vs just being 'run over by the bus'). The phrase has basically replaced the older 'thrown to the wolves' phrase that politicians used to use.

The last part about the 'on the bus/off the bus', 'run over by the bus' evolving into 'thrown under the bus' is harder to document, but it's so close it almost has to be the source of the phrase 'thrown under the bus'.

Not really. I think it's a fairly useful phrase and has been around for longer than most of us have been alive. True, it has become a mind numbing overused phrase in this election. But I don't find it any more annoying than hearing the words "change" and "hope" about a hundred times and little else to back those words up. Now you're probably thinking I'm not an Obama supporter. I am - he has my vote, but I'm a realist too. He better get heavy on the substance soon and lighter on the rhetoric. Right now he's taking a whole lot of flack for moving to the middle, and it's not hard to understand why. We had a moderate candidate, we rejected her. If the middle is where he thinks he needs to be, we could have had that already plus a boatload more experience with Clinton as the nominee.

that guy who was thrown under a bus by a foe and survived to tell about it

this was one of Jimmy Hoffa's quotes, he used it in a speech to the press while he was negotiating for the teamsters, not sure of exact date.

I don't know. BUT whoever it was should be shot! I hate it when I hear people say that. It gets on my nerves like you don't even know!!!! Its like finger nails on the chalk board to me...grrrrrr.

That started after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat . They threw her under the bus !!!!!!!!!

lmao lolololololololololololololololol..............