Jimmy Carter attacked by rabbit

Watership Downer

Before the current American presidential race became the most bizarre and confusing political happening in US history, there was Jimmy Carter and the rabbit. It was on this day in 1980 that the story finally broke that the sitting American President had recently been attacked by a killer rabbit while fishing at home in Georgia. Of course, this being the mainstream media, the story had been somewhat exaggerated. And then everyone involved was thoroughly ridiculed. Carter, at the time, wasn’t the most popular Commander in Chief and was thought to be a bit ineffectual and useless.

So his enemies loved the idea of a rabbit beating him up. In fact, there really was a slightly deranged rabbit who swam towards Carter’s boat while hissing and gnashing its teeth. Using all his political nous, the President shooed it away with an oar and it went on its way. Satirist Dave Berry rather cruelly described it as the uncontested single most memorable event of the Carter presidency.