That Time Jimmy Carter Was Attacked by a Rabbit

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We think it’s safe to say that nobody in human history has ever looked at a rabbit and thought “That thing could take me in a fist fight”. Which makes the story of the time President Jimmy Carter was attacked by one all the more hilarious. 

The incident in question took place in 1979 when the President was out fishing. According to the man himself, he saw the rabbit being chased by some dogs when it dove into the water and began swimming menacingly towards him with murder and possibly some water in its eyes.

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Now you’re probably thinking, “wait, surely the rabbit was just swimming to Carter for help, how do you know it was trying to attack him, dipshit?”. First of all, ouch, second of all, we know because of what the President did next. Try to slap the rabbit to death with his paddle and you don’t try to hit animals you’re not scared of with boating implements. It’s also reported that the animal was making weird hissing noises and was gnashing its teeth as it powered through the water towards to unprotected leader of the free world.

Carter, would later recount the story of his run in with the killer rabbit to his aides who refused to believe him, variously insisting that rabbits either couldn’t swim or that one would be too timid to try and board his boat. This annoyed Carter who insisted that the rabbit incident not only occurred the way he told but that the rabbit was also like *this* big. Luckily for Carter, although his aides didn’t believe him, the media sure as hell did.

rabbit

The media, unlike Carter’s friends and confidants in the White House, ate that shit right up and gleefully reported on the President’s run in with a rabid rabbit that tried to tear his throat out like in that documentary starring those guys from Monty Python.

What made the whole thing weirder is that a White House photographer actually managed to take a candid snap of the whole thing. Capturing the moment the President attempted to shoo the rabbit away with his oar.

Carter is about three seconds from doing a combo on that rabbit's asshole.
Pictured: Carter about three seconds away from doing a combo on that rabbit’s asshole.

However the White House, fearing the picture might embarrass the President, refused to release the photo to the press. Which probably made things worse because this is the substitute they ended up using instead.

To be fair, the rabbit in this picture is way bigger.
To be fair, the rabbit in this picture is way bigger.

It actually took until after Carter left office for the White House to begrudgingly release the photo above, at which point everyone involved, including Carter, admitted it was probably kind of funny.