What’s the straight dope on Jimmy Carter’s once being attacked by a killer rabbit? I hear there are actually photos of Carter swinging for his life at this rabbit, but his people refused to release them because “some facts about the president must remain forever wrapped in obscurity.” What the hell is going on? –Donald Lilly, North Hollywood, California
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The rabbit incident happened on April 20, while Carter was taking a few days off in Plains, Georgia. He was fishing from a canoe in a pond when he spotted the fateful rabbit swimming toward him. It was never precisely determined what the rabbit’s problem was. Carter, always trying to look at things from the other guy’s point of view, later speculated that it was fleeing a predator. Whatever the case, it was definitely a troubled rabbit. “It was hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for the president,” a press account said.
Good thing too. Carter’s own staff was skeptical when he told the rabbit story back at the White House. Some ventured the opinion that rabbits couldn’t swim, didn’t attack people, and sure weren’t about to take on a sitting president, even if it was Jimmy Carter. Miffed, Jimmy ordered up a print of the aforementioned photo, but this failed to resolve the issue. The picture showed the president with his paddle raised, and there was something in the water, “but you couldn’t tell what it was,” an anonymous staffer was quoted as saying. The average politician would have said, goddamnit, I’m president of the United States, and I say it was a rabbit. But Carter was not that kind of guy. He ordered a blowup made, establishing at last that his attacker was, well, a bunny, or “swamp rabbit,” to use press secretary Jody Powell’s somewhat fiercer sounding term.
