Yojimmy Battles the Pink Rabbits

TIM:

There he is!

ARTHUR:

Where?

TIM:

There!

ARTHUR:

What, behind the rabbit?

TIM:

It is the rabbit.

ARTHUR:

You silly sod!

TIM:

What?

ARTHUR:

You got us all worked up!

TIM:

Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!

ARTHUR:

Ohh.

TIM:

That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

ROBIN:

You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!

TIM:

Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!

This week saw the dedication of the third of our most powerful submarines in

the U.S. fleet, the Seawolf class. Named for a former nuke, the USS Jimmy Carter

is specially outfitted with a hull extension allowing for spy and special

operations missions. The reason I inkoved Monte Python (if the internet is now

so non-geek that I need a reason) is to remind and educate you of a more

recent naval battle won by president Carter. In April of 1979 the president was met

with an unusual occurance, alone on a canoe. The Washington Post summed up

the story as follows:

While home fishing in Georgia during a summer when his popularity was at low

tide, President Jimmy Carter's small boat was "attacked" by a mysterious

swimming rabbit, which the president warded off with a paddle. Once leaked into

print by Brooks Jackson of the Associated Press, the bizarre story captured the

press's and the public's imagination, becoming a metaphor for Carter's hapless,

enfeebled presidency. The incident encouraged Massachusetts Sen. Edward M.

Kennedy's primary challenge to Carter's renomination, and it became a symbolic

preamble to Carter's landslide loss in November 1980.

With nuclear war with the Ruskies on the line, stagflation choking the American

economy, and the Islamic revolution in Iran (oil embargo, hostages), president Carter

had defeated a bunny. This anecdote alone should serve as a reminder that nice guys

should never be Commander in Chief. For that matter they shouldn't be your stock broker,

your lawyer,or your mountain climbing instructor. Nice people avoid conflict when it is

the best resolution to a problem, even when it is the only way out of a problem. Nice

people don't like to correct others or to argue, even if they believe passionately in

their argument. Nice people are not always nice: How often have you heard that ominous

preface "he's a nice guy, but... "?

Why president Carter thought he was under seige from a paddling rodent is unknown. Perhaps,

holding the highest office in the land during times Confucius would call interesting, required a physical

release of all that psychic pressure, compunded by the burden of always having to appear "nice."

As the USS Jimmy Carter finishes sea trials and enters into comissioned service in

defense of the United States, pray those giving the orders are those detail

oriented, compulsive, gruff, workaholic jerks; men and women with no fear of doling

out tough news, or amphibious rabbits.

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