The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as the "killer rabbit attack" by the press, involved a swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus) that swam toward U.S. president Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Associated Press White House correspondent Brooks Jackson learned of the story months later.
On April 20, 1979, during a few days of vacation in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Carter was fishing in a canoe or rowboat [1] in a pond in his farm, when he saw a swamp rabbit, which Carter later speculated was fleeing from a predator, swimming in the water and making its way towards him, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared", [2] [3] [4] [5] so he reacted by either hitting or splashing water at it with his paddle to scare it away, and it subsequently went away from him and climbed out of the pond. A White House photographer captured the subsequent scene. Carter was uninjured; the fate of the rabbit is unknown. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
On August 30, Carter told reporters that it "was just a nice, quiet, typical Georgia rabbit." [9] University of Maryland zoologist Vagn Flyger rejected the idea of the rabbit attacking Carter, saying that, "If anything, he was probably scared and trying to find a dry place to get to." [9]
In the spring of 1979, soon after returning from Plains, Jimmy Carter was making small talk with various White House staff, including his press secretary Jody Powell, while sitting on the Truman Balcony, likely drinking lemonade, when he mentioned the story. [7] [10] His staff were skeptical about the actions of the rabbit, so he showed them a print of the photograph, which clearly showed him and the canoe, but the rabbit was too small to identify, so he got a larger version, which convinced them. [2] [3]
According to Powell, in the subsequent August, Powell was chatting with Associated Press White House correspondent Brooks Jackson — according to Powell's memory, over a cup of tea, but according to Carter, "in a bar after a lot of drinking had gone on" [6] — and mentioned the story. [8] The next day, Jackson reported it to the news. [7] [10]
According to Jackson, he heard it while on a trip with the president on a Mississippi paddle wheeler, and wrote it up a week later. [1]
The story had an embargo of a couple of days, but radio stations, such as those that carried Paul Harvey's programs, started talking about it shortly after it was submitted, so newspapers successfully requested that the embargo be lifted. [1] [11] : 259 (Their eagerness to publish the story may be a result of a dearth of other news. [11] : 79 ) As a result, on August 30 the story got a front-page article in The Washington Post under the title "Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President", [10] illustrated with a parody of the Jaws movie poster, entitled "PAWS", [2] [4] [8] and a New York Times article entitled "A Tale of Carter and the 'Killer Rabbit'". [5] Coverage in various news continued for more than a week. [7]
No news photographers were allowed to be close enough to take photographs, and the Carter administration refused to share the photograph. Deputy press secretary Rex Granum said that "There are just certain stories about the president that must forever remain shrouded in mystery." [3] [4] [5] Powell stated, "We're afraid if we release the photo, the rabbit controversy over the next two weeks will receive more ink than the SALT treaty." [10] [12] News cartoonists instead drew their own illustrations, exaggerating the story. [11] : 131
Near the beginning of their time in the White House, the Reagan administration came across a copy of the picture, and released it to the press, thereby reigniting media coverage. [2] [7]
Jerry Callen obtained a digital copy of the photograph from the Jimmy Carter Library, and released it on his blog, Narsil.org. [13]
The media used the event as a metaphor for however they wished to negatively portray Carter. [2] [7] [11] : 11,75,129 [14] In the subsequent elections, Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, and Republicans won a majority in the Senate, which they had not had since 1954. [10]
The event and the reactions to it were parodied in multiple xkcd comics [15] and a Saturday Night Live sketch. [16]
James Earl Carter Jr. is an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter was the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975, and a Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967. At age 99, he is both the oldest living former U.S. president and the longest-lived president in U.S. history.
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David Hume Kennerly is an American photographer. He won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his portfolio of photographs of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden. He has photographed every American president since Lyndon B Johnson. He is the first presidential scholar at the University of Arizona.
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Killer rabbit may refer to:
Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan, after one term in office. Aged 99, he is the oldest living, longest-lived and longest-married president, and has the longest post-presidency. He is the fourth-oldest living former state leader.
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Jimmy Raymond Allen was an American pastor and President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1977 to 1979. As president of the SBC, Allen was noted for his moderation and commitment to compassion in the church and was the last president before the SBC's conservative resurgence. After leaving his post as president, he continued to serve in the SBC before eventually becoming involved in other baptist organizations.
