{Underrated} Enemies: The Jimmy Carter Rabbit Attack of 1979

As America continues to hurtle towards oblivion at a breakneck pace, the most overrated and disgusting form of historical thought has come back into style in a huge way. In our current political climate, we have become so desperate to find anything to be proud of as a nation that we have decided to pull out all the stops on whitewashing our history.

You can see this most readily in the modern reclamation of George W. Bush by younger liberals. In a world where the current president regularly tweets threats of nuclear war, it is easy for some to ignore the consequences of the Patriot Act (and more!) now that the dude who pushed for it has drawn a few dogs kinda poorly a few times. (For the record, were I still paid a pension of over $200,000 a year as a gift for starting a war under false pretenses, I would have learned how to paint dogs VERY well in 8 years.)

This sort of historical revisionism is omnipresent and responsible for a lot of ultimately regrettable and uninformed perceptions of American history at large. It is high time that we, as a society, move forward and adopt an until-now underrated, unpopular alternative: really tearing Jimmy Carter a new one about that time in 1979 he was attacked by a rabbit on a boat.

In April 20th, 1979, a “swamp rabbit” swam towards President Carter’s fishing boat, allegedly with intent to bite him or something. President Carter splashed some water at it with his paddle. It swam away without incident, and President Carter was mocked for a good while in the media.

However, we should all really still be laughing at ol’ J.C. about this one. In a perfect world, we would turn on SNL in 2017 and instead of being met with Baldwin’s toothless Trump impression as NBC continues to pretend they weren’t responsible for 14 seasons of The Apprentice, we would be met with footage of Lorne Michaels being chased by a rabbit for the full runtime. Bobby Moynihan can play the rabbit, should he choose.

In a totally separate but still perfect world, Jimmy Carter wouldn’t be able to leave his house without his own body guards yelling directly into his ear, “J.C.? Jimmy Carter? More like ‘Jesus Christ, there’s a rabbit, somebody grab a paddle!’”

But in this world, where the bulk of political discourse is based in denying facts and viewing history with massive blinders, we might as well pick one president to direct all of the jokes at to avoid defanging the others. And as long as we’re picking, there’s no other president who has ever been photographed being a bit frightened by a rabbit in office. At least, not with any surviving photos.

This sort of direct, unwarranted negativity towards the presidency in general could eventually have a ripple effect leading towards a direct, very warranted negativity towards the presidency. More importantly, it will finally save me from the hell I have lived in every since I read in a book when I was in the 4th grade that Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit once, and that this happened on a boat.

Nobody on this Earth has truly known loneliness until they make a killer joke about the time Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swimming rabbit, only to have to explain to their friends, colleagues, or editor that Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swimming rabbit while in office. Once we have bonded together, as a nation, we can finally begin to heal, and maybe, just maybe, get started on discussing that time Georgia governor Jimmy Carter claimed to see a UFO in 1969.