Did you know an American President survived an assassination by a swamp rabbit? It happened on April 20, 1979. President Jimmy Carter was fishing in a flat-bottomed bottom alone while on vacation in Plains, Georgia. As he told a reporter later, a swamp rabbit swam out towards the boat “with strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth”. Apparently fleeing from hounds, the rabbit wanted to get into the boat. Carter used his paddle to splash water at the desperate bunny. It worked as the potential assassin swam elsewhere. Carter’s staff found the story amusing and some were skeptical about a swimming rabbit, but a White House photographer had taken a picture that proved the President was not making it up. A while later, Carter told the story to a reporter and on August 30, the Washington Post ran a front page article entitled “Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President.” Soon the rest of the media picked up the story and it became fodder for political cartoonists and stand-up comics. The lack of video was solved by running the clip of the killer rabbit scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Carter became a laughing stock. After Reagan became President, the White House released the photo of the rabbit approaching the boat. So we know the story was true. What is unclear is why Carter would not keep such a story under his hat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
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