Talk:Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

message: I am putting out an RfC here on the last line of this article, and requesting a reversion or a simple deletion of the line.  The line claims that the embarrassment of the rabbit incident is "synonymous" with the Carter presidency, and then cites a very short blurb from the Washington Post which is actually part of a larger piece about "media frenzies" and attacks made on Presidents in the past.  The line is inappropriate first because it treats an opinion as a cited fact, and therefore breaks neutrality rules; secondly, because it fails to note the proper context of its citation (a larger piece about wild attacks in the news media).
Abs7 08:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, no problem. Personally I feel the wording "portraying him as..." gives the indication that it's hardly an accepted fact that Carter was those things, merely that it's like saying "This story of the cherry tree was later seen to encapsulate George Washington's integrity" or something, it may or may not be true, but it's what the story is frequently associated with in common parlance. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead)  09:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inappropriate 

message: In Press Secretary Foster's 1986 book The Other Side of the Story, he recounted the story as such...Who is Foster?
:Good catch, not sure how that screwed up - should have said Powell of course :)  Thanks for the help. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead)  02:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foster 

message: I am going to move this to Jimmy Carter rabbit incident because the rabbit was in no way the possession of Jimmy. BenB4 15:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: This is a well-made articleSpencerk 03:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, I'd never heard of the incident myself until I saw somebody wearing a spoof t-shirt mimicking "9/11: Never forget" slogans, with one about the world never being the same after the President was attacked by a rabbit :) Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead)  07:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are so funny. Extremely sexy 15:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text: If there are similar articles for other presidents, by all means include them. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead)  05:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Applause

message: Do we really need every last pop culture reference of every event in history included in wikipedia?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.170.52.58 (talk) 17:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All the notable ones. Binarybits (talk) 18:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.2.73 (talk) 08:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

text: To an American, this may be just another worn-out pop-culture reference.  As a non-American, I'd never heard of this before today despite being in my thirties, and am glad there's a reasonably reliable reference to explain what is being referred to on the XKCD 'Map Age Guide', and that I finally understand why the Animaniacs Presidents Song always summed up Carter's presidency with the line 'Jimmy Carter liked camping trips'. 194.153.21.81 (talk) 12:14, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Tired Pop Culture Fluff

message: Unfortunately, none of these demonstrate the of-touted concept of "cultural impact". Instead, what you've got is the usual handful of minor references. These don't show us the lasting impact. In our age of referential pop-culture comedy, every single newsworthy event gets lampooned somewhere. What might be useful is a sourced description of how this event influenced/was perceived by the public, but those short, random references don't help at all. They have no place in an encyclopedia. Mintrick (talk) 21:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to open an RfC on the matter; but otherwise we will err on the side of the "stable" version of the article that has existed for over two years. Many WP articles about historical events include a list of cultural impact/references, something like D-Day may not since there would be millions, but something like this would. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead)  21:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid that's not how it works. You cannot simply declare something the "stable" version and keep it perpetually. And such sections are quite commonly deleted. Take a moment and think; why are the D-Day references not important, but the ones here are? Is there a real difference? Or is it simply that the deficiencies of this kind of non-information become vastly more obvious when they are more voluminous than actual content? Mintrick (talk) 21:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed cultural references 

message: An article like this should be a one-sentence stub of an article on the list for deletion. How long of an article does some rabbit incident in a person's life need to be in an encylopedia? GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 21:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Three things make it notable: 1) That it happened to the President of the United States. 2) That it received significant media coverage. 3) That people saw the incident, fairly or unfairly, as emblematic of Carter's presidency. YLee (talk) 22:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps more for the way the White House swept it under the rug than any other reason... The incident was originally caught on video, then, years later, somehow the original video ceased to exist and it was replaced by a still image that is not a picture of Carter, and is furthermore a bizarre double exposure. The whole cover-up aspect is just plain weird. Almost as weird as the cover-up of Al Franken boiling live cockroaches on SNL.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:6AE5:2510:0:0:0:46 (talk) 00:38, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Um... 

message: How many more times do you think we can fit the word "boat" into this sentence?
Carter had gone on a solo fishing expedition in his hometown of Plains, Georgia when the rabbit approached his boat, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for the president",[1] trying desperately to enter the boat, causing Carter to flail at the swimming creature with the oars from his boat.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.45.4 (talk) 00:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Boat" 

message: Not sure how noteworthy this is, but there is a reference to this incident in an xkcd: http://xkcd.com/204/ --MinorFixes (talk) 21:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pop-culture reference on xkcd 

message: This article was changed to a redirect by a user claiming that a consensus existed in favor of this action. Can that user show where such a consensus was reached?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hermitage (talk • contribs) 09:42, 29 May 2013
:Continue this discussion at Talk:Presidency of Jimmy Carter#The rabbit incident – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  what consensus? 

message: This redirect points to a location that has no real information about the incident. The current place where the incident is described is Swamp rabbit#Carter incident. If it's going to stay this way, the redirect should be changed to point to the other location. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:02, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: See thread above, for the link to current/ongoing discussion. –Quiddity (talk) 00:11, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The information is now elsewhere 

message: I notice this this article is averaging 339 pageviews a day. There are a couple spikes (probably from a mention somewhere in media) but even on slow days its over 150, usually well over. So a comment and question:
*I think this kind of puts paid to all the objections above about this not being a worthwhile page.
*What the heck? Can anyone explain why hundreds of readers a day are accessing this page? Herostratus (talk) 13:37, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that it's now linked from Trump orb, an article that you created. That should give page views an extra boost! You promote it, and then ask why it's so popular? wbm1058 (talk) 13:52, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't promote it, I linked to it as an example. I have no interest in promoting it, and the 339 pageviews is over the last 90 days nor has there been a recent spike. Making up random nonsense about other editor's motives is not a good idea. Herostratus (talk) 19:19, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hey, lighten up. I understand you weren't intentionally promoting it; that's just a side effect of "using it as an example". Then the next question is, "what's so special about this example?" Looking at this kind of stuff brings "clickbait" to my mind. Your "orb" article got a big spike for the first few days, but it's already retreated into the noise of the rest. It takes some time to find out whether a fresh incident will have enough "staying power" to become a "click-baitey" encyclopedic article for the long term. wbm1058 (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. It's a big project. There's room for lots of stuff. Trump orb is being artificially depressed because AfD'ing it means its not indexed for Google searches (I think). Not that pageviews matter much... it's one date point. What the heck happened to Chappaquidick the other day? Herostratus (talk) 21:11, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Beats me. Is this film going to be released soon? wbm1058 (talk) 21:53, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

text: Oh, I see. :Category:Noindexed articles was created 30 October 2016‎, per Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements#8. No Index until patrolled.  will normally noindex any main namespace pages that are less than 30 days old. Unless page patrol removes the tag. I did not know that. If there was a tech-news announcement of it, I missed it. Since 3 February 2017  has transcluded . I studied how indexing works in various namespaces, and documented my finding about 18 months ago on Template:INDEX. But this change last October is more recent than when I looked into it. My understanding was that all mainspace was indexed, and  had no effect in mainspace. I think this is still the case for articles > 30 days old? wbm1058 (talk) 21:53, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's the deal here? 

message: Re: 
From the Subject Index – listed under 
* The introductory table on p. 7 lists the case studies used for the book – those relating to Carter:
** 1976 Jimmy Carter's "lust in the heart" Playboy interview
** 1979 Jimmy Carter's "killer rabbit"
** 1980 Billygate (Billy Carter and Libya)
** 1983 Debategate (Reagan's use of Carter's debate briefing books)
* A one paragraph summary on p. 11 says "once leaked into print by Brooks Jackson of the Associated Press"
* The table listing the "frenzies" and the press subtext predating each (p. 72) says "Carter's presidency had soured, and the press perceived him as managerially incompetent and politically impotent."
* A paragraph on p. 74–75 says when B. Jackson sent out the story he missed its significance. Only after editors across the country asked the AP to permit early publication did Jackson realize how the story fitted the journalistic subtext about Carter. Jackson called some of the play of his footnote of a story "irresponsible". Sabato cites the WSJ article – Paul Harvey was the first to use the AP story, according to Jackson, which helped trigger pressure from newspapers for earlier-than-scheduled publication.
* Timing (p. 79) Frenzies are more likely in slow news periods such as the doldrums of summer – the absence of hard news allows relatively insignificant events (e.g. Billygate, "killer rabbit", Debategate) to get blown out of proportion
* Humor (p. 129) "President Carter's killer rabbit provided fodder for endless gags about his political ineptitude and impotence."
Jody Powell is mentioned in the book, per the Name Index:
* In relation to Debategate (p. 11 and 81)
* Quoted: "by August 1979, if the President had been set upon by a pack of wild dogs, a good portion of the press would have sided with the dogs and declared that he had provoked the attack." (p. 92) – from Powell's 1984 book, The Other Side of the Story
So no confirmation or denial that Powell was or wasn't Jackson's source is given in Sabato's 1991 book. And that's The Rest of the Story. :)
I guess we need to use the WSJ piece for that. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:32, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sabato's 1991 book 

message: I removed the statement that the incident " demonstrated that Carter's presidency was hapless and enfeebled. That is an editor's opinion, and does not belong in the article. If some reliable source or named political expert said that, we could include text that "Mr. Expert and the Daily Blast said that the incident demonstrated that Carter's presidency was hapless and enfeebled." But you cannot just stick that into the article as the conclusion of Wikipedia. The Wash Post reference for the passage just says "the bizarre story captured the press's and the public's imagination, becoming a metaphor for Carter's hapless, enfeebled presidency" A direct quote of that  would be fine. Edison (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: " demonstrated that [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Carter's presidency]] was hapless and enfeebled"

message: Hard to place when this was published.  Possibly after it was discovered that the Reagan campaign staff had access to Carter's campaign staff's files?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dye46 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the cartoon and I think that it is relevant. But the filename shouldn't have the text "Pogo" in it. Walt Kelly died in 1973. As far as I know, no newspapers carried Pogo in 1976, the year Carter was elected. Having the text "Pogo" in the name of the file gives a misleading impression, considering that the style of this image is so much like Walt Kelly's work right down to that being the same kind of boat that Pogo and his friends always used for fishin' and the like.2600:1700:6759:B000:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 05:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perhaps this cartoon could be added to the "Media accounts" section? 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion