Killer Rabbit

On April 20 1979, one of the weirdest occurrences in presidential history happened involving Jimmy Carter and a rabbit.  On a short vacation back home in Plains GA, Carter decided to do a little fishing at a nearby pond.  At some point, a crazed rabbit swam toward Carter's boat "hissing menacingly". The President waved it away with an oar, it changed direction and swam away. End of story, right?  Unfortunately for Carter, no.  His press secretary Jody Powell let slip to a reporter and the story broke. Big time.  The Washington Post put the bunny story on page one complete with a cartoon takeoff of the famous "Jaws" movie poster entitled "Paws."

There were no Secret Service agents present while The President was defending himself.  There was a photographer, however, and he captured the moment for posterity.  Carter was miffed that White House staff didn't believe what happened, so he insisted that the photos be blown up and distributed, so of course they leaked, as well.  Apparently there were no other major events at the time, so this became a big story.

But it was more than a silly and embarrassing tale.  It became a metaphor for Carter's presidency:  a feckless man flailing away at his problems, in this case a bunny rabbit.  It's still comedy gold to the right.  He'd just presided over the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, was thought to have handled Three Mile Island well, but this trifling event still diminished him further in the eyes of many Americans.  The rest of the year would do little to change that.

Of course, a lot of us thought of this when the story came out...

h/t Cecil Adams