knee-deep in the Big Muddy

• waist-deep in the Big Muddy

From Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, a 1967 folk song by Pete Seeger, protesting the war in Vietnam.

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knee-deep in the Big Muddy

1. (chiefly US, idiomatic) Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership.
   • 1994 September 16, Cal Thomas, “Clinton should heed Gore advice”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010:

     Polls show three-quarters of the people don't want us to invade Haiti. Nonetheless, it appears we're about to go knee-deep in the Big Muddy.

   • 2002 July 16, Edward Iwata, “Enron faces 'hornet's nest' of charges”, in USA Today, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010:

     The 40-year-old Fastow, a hot-tempered financial whiz, engineered the controversial partnerships that led to Enron's meltdown. . . . "He's knee-deep in the big muddy," Meagher says.

   • 2007, Janice Langan-Fox et al., Research Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace, →ISBN, page 142:

     In the classic ‘knee deep in the Big Muddy’ scenario (Staw, 1976), individuals continue to contribute to a losing cause long after it is clear that this is a tremendous waste of money.

• bogged down