Jimmy Carter rabbit incident
The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as a "killer rabbit attack" by the press, also known as the "1979 Jimmy Carter rabbit incident", involved a swamp rabbit ("Sylvilagus aquaticus") that swam toward then–U.S. President Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, mentioned the event to a correspondent months later. Background. President Carter was fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on April 20, 1979, alone in a flat-bottomed boat while staff were on land nearby. Carter said  a rabbit being chased by hounds "jumped in the water and swam toward my boat. When he got almost there, I splashed some water with a paddle." When Carter returned to his office, his staff did not believe his story, saying rabbits could not swim or that one would never approach a person threateningly. However, a White House photographer had taken a picture of the incident, which was released by a later administration. Media accounts. Associated Press correspondent Brooks Jackson's story on the incident was published August 30, 1979, in various newspapers, including on the front page of "The  Washington Post" with the title "Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President." The White House did not publicly release a photograph of the event until much later, and the "Post" printed a cartoon parody of the "Jaws" poster labeled "PAWS" as its illustration. The White House declined to release the photo to the media until it turned up during the Reagan administration and the story saw a revival. In his 1986 book "The Other Side of the Story", Powell recounted the story: The incident with the rabbit became fodder for political and ideological opponents who wanted to frame Carter's presidency  as hapless and enfeebled, although the event's proximity to the U.S. release of the comedy feature film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", which includes scenes of a killer rabbit slaying humans, led to some people describing Carter as having "fended off a killer rabbit" instead.