Free Republic

Jimmy Carter’s run-in with a swamp rabbit on a Georgia pond became a metaphor for a sinking White House term.On a spring day in 1979, a waterborne rabbit approached the leader of the free world as he fished near his home in Georgia. President Jimmy Carter splashed it with an oar, seeing the creature was “clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk … making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth,” his press secretary Jody Powell later wrote. The rabbit swam away, its pair of bunny ears visible above the water line.Four months later, news of the peculiar incident transformed it...

Jimmy Carter: Recovering Racist, Still a Bigot By Julia Gorin Jimmy Carter has been called everything from a humanitarian, to a crack pot, to the ultimate pacifist. But a look into his past reveals a shoe that fits better than all of these. It's a story told to me by an acquaintance from Watertown, NY, a place situated way upstate, well north of Syracuse. The acquaintance had heard it from two barflies who were there the night in 1975 that Jimmy Carter passed through town in his first New York appearance during the "250-day 1975 portion of the presidential campaign,"...

ATLANTA Hamas and the Palestinians Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life. Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show...

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...

List your two favorite and your two least favorite months and why.

Who is/was the WORST U.S. PRESIDENT EVER? Carter? Clinton? Make your choice and state your reasons.

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),...