The Supreme Court had rejected a similar claim out of Illinois in 1946, saying it did not want to enter the "political thicket."

The political thicket Orwell waded into was so complex that historians are still trying to untangle it.

Battle, who is expected to be named an adviser to the United States Olympic Committee, will help guide New York through the international political thicket.

Coming out of the woods and heading back into the political thicket, the Big Guy said the outing had been the "big thrill" of his day.

That case opened legislative reapportionments, previously a forbidden "political thicket," to judicial review.

In 1962, when it initiated modern voting rights with a seminal "one man, one vote" ruling, Frankfurter dissented, arguing for staying out of the "political thicket."

The court, he wrote, must not enter "a political thicket" by seeking to intrude on state political matters.

The concerns that justified those dramatic and rare interventions explain why the current incursion into the political thicket is so ill-advised.

When asked about the political thicket of the stem cell debate, he looks uncomfortable.

Gergen appreciates the political thicket in which Clinton found himself.