Ace of Spades reminds us that today is the 27th anniversary of the day when President Jimmy Carter was attacked by blood-thirsty, hissing, swimming rabbit with glowing red demon eyes. Carter was forced to beat off the Jihadist rabbit with a canoe paddle. I have a picture of the near-tragedy below (courtesy of Narsil and the Jimmy Carter Library). Click on the picture for an ultra-clear view but be forewarned that the image is almost a megabyte in size and would take forever to download if you’re using a modem rather than a high-speed connection. According to The Straight Dope:

The rabbit incident happened on April 20 while Carter was taking a few days off in Plains, Georgia. He was fishing from a canoe in a pond when he spotted the fateful rabbit swimming toward him. It was never precisely determined what the rabbit’s problem was. Carter, always trying to look at things from the other guy’s point of view, later speculated that it was fleeing a predator. Whatever the case, it was definitely a troubled rabbit. “It was hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for the president,” a press account said.

The Secret Service having been caught flatfooted — I’ll grant you an amphibious rabbit assault is a tough thing to defend against — the president did what he could to protect himself. Initially it was reported that he had hit the rabbit with his paddle. Realizing this would not play well with the Rabbit Lovers Guild, Carter later clarified that he had merely splashed water at the rabbit, which then swam off toward shore. A White House photographer, ever alert to history’s pivotal moments, snapped a picture of the encounter for posterity.

Here are some newspaper clippings about that fateful day, a super-duper Secret Service photo of the suspected rabbit in his lair that they found in their investigation several months later, and an actual recording of President Carter relating the story to his staff.