Posted on 04/20/2006 9:06:23 AM PDT by RWR8189
Today in Odd History, President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit during a fishing trip in Plains, Georgia. The rabbit, which may have been fleeing a predator, swam toward his boat, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared." President Carter was forced to swat at the vicious beast with a canoe paddle, which apparently scared it off.
Upon his return to the White House, Carter told his staff about the furry amphibian's assault. Most of them refused to believe him, insisting that rabbits can't swim (although since most mammals can swim, there's no reason to believe that rabbits cannot), and that even if they could, they certainly wouldn't attack humans, and certainly not presidents. Fortunately, a White House photographer had been on the scene, and had recorded the bizarre attack. The photograph showed Carter with his paddle raised, warding off a small creature which might, or might not, have been a rabbit. One staffer was quoted as saying, "You couldn't tell what it was." Undaunted by their skepticism, Carter had the image enlarged, and there it was--a killer bunny rabbit, apparently bent on assassinating the president.
The story might have ended there, except that White House Press Secretary Jody Powell mentioned the incident to Associated Press reporter Brooks Jackson in August. 
The Washington Post ran it as front page news. The original photograph was not available (until the Reagan administration leaked it in 1981), but the paper filled the gap with a cartoon modeled on the poster for the movie Jaws, starring the rabbit and entitled Paws. Powell made a belated attempt to impress the public with the seriousness of the attack, calling the creature a "swamp rabbit," but since Carter had to appease his rabbit-loving constituents by insisting that he had not actually smacked his buck-toothed opponent with his paddle, but only splashed water at it to drive it away, it seemed unlikely that he had been in danger. The entire episode became a 
symbol of Carter's floundering presidency. According to Powell, "[I]t shows the extent to which an insignificant incident can snowball and end up in newspapers and news shows across the country.” Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley says, “It just played up the Carter flake factor.... I mean, he had to deal with Russia and the Ayatollah and here he was supposedly fighting off a rabbit.”
Note: While some presidential apologists have suggested that Carter might actually have been attacked by a nutria, a large, aggressive aquatic rodent, others have insisted that the President's assailant was a simple, if unusually vicious, bunny rabbit. Fulk, the 12th century king of Jerusalem, was killed by a rabbit. (Well, really he was killed by a fall from his horse, but the horse had been startled by a rabbit.) And many years ago, I was the owner of a Blue Dutch rabbit named Sequin. One of my friends still bears the scars of an encounter with Sequin--a perfectly matched set of parallel teeth marks, where Sequin's fangs closed on her hand and ripped through the flesh when she pulled her hand away. Bunnies are, indeed, fiercer than anyone but Monty Python has generally given them credit for.
"Will you be...my neighbor?"
I bet most of you oldtimers read his book, got all misty for the navy man and voted dem for president the first time in your voting life. He fooled a lot of conservatives.
Shows just how dangerous presidential politics are. Kerry tried to Carter his way in.
Bravo!
This story needs to be told, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why, with Iran threatening the world with nukes, you NEVER hear any mention by any news organizations that were it not for Jimmy Carter, that Iran would not pose a threat to the world at all, the son of the late Shah would probably be in Tehran right now as the head of an Iranian monarchy, but ceremonial in power, and a Western-style representative republic answerable to the Iranian voters would be a responsible member of the international community.
The Shah was never a threat to Israel. He was in fact a stabilizing influence in the Middle East, and his demise and the chaos that has followed can be laid at the feet of Jimmy Carter and his insane belief-system.
Peace Prize my butt!
What's sad is, if I was eligible to vote in 1976, I probably would have voted for Carter over that doofus Ford.
Behold! There swam a dark rabbit...and all hell followed with him.
Link to article on the famous WKRP turkey episode (w/ audio link) HERE
I thought it was a killer nutria? :)
LOL. His staff thought "oh God not another one of his UFO stories..what a wierdo"
Today in history - Columbine.
And the one with Jimmy at a police line-up which included the Easter Bunny, Harvey, the rabbit from "Alice in Wonderland," and a thuggish-looking rabbit in a leather jacket. "That's him! That's him!"
The modern day joke should be; "Your guy beat rabbits, our guy shoots lawyers."
Looking at the picture, I assume everybody would have done the same thing.
I avoid any wild animal that is acting in an abnormal manner, because rabies ia a common reason for that abnormal desire to approach humans.
Even without rabies, swatting the water to get any animal to swim on seems the natural reaction.
Ford immediately knew he'd screwed up, and unsuccessfully tried to backpedal. Unfortunately, the damage had been done.
Carter's facial expression was chilling - I knew then that this was not a born-again Christian, I saw true evil.
I don't know which legacy is worse: Staining an intern's dress or being attacked by a bunny rabbit.
Yeah, but how could Ford have been such a blithering idiot.
Of course hindsight is 20/20, and the only silver lining is that because Ford lost, it paved the way for Reagan in 1980.
Funny!
Carter is brain dead too!
At a March 1980 meeting with his senior political advisers,
Jimmy Carter angrily snapped, "If I get back in, I`m going to f--- the Jews."
Later in 1980, Cyrus Vance…confirmed to then-New York mayor Ed Koch that Carter,
if reelected, was planning to "sell out" Jews.
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