Replies

Waiting for Joe Stolen to be battling an aggressive and determined rabbit, as Jimmy Carter once did.

The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as a “killer rabbit attack” by the press, involved a swamp rabbit that swam toward then–U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Carter’s press secretary, Jody Powell, mentioned the event to a correspondent months later. Carter said a rabbit being chased by hounds “jumped in the water and swam toward my boat. When he got almost there, I splashed some water with a paddle.”

When Carter returned to his office, his staff did not believe his story, saying rabbits could not swim, or that one would never approach a person threateningly. But a White House photographer had taken a picture of the incident, which was released by a later administration.

The incident with the rabbit became fodder for political and ideological opponents who wanted to frame Carter’s presidency as hapless and enfeebled, some people describing Carter as having “fended off a killer rabbit”.