The Late Jody Powell

TW: Jimmy Carter's former press secretary and key aide Jody Powell passed away yesterday of a heart attack. Carter had some mediocre staff but I always liked Powell as a straight shooter and his reputation held up better than many from the Carter years. Powell (is standing on the right) for those not quite as wonky as me. But do you recognize the guy sitting in front of Powell? I posted a similar photo last fall. Chris Matthews was a speechwriter for Carter along with the guy sitting on the left who is Hendrik Hertzberg now an editor at the New Yorker.

Craig Crawford related a Powell story about the infamous "Jimmy Carter attacked by a rabbit" case on his blog and it goes to show media craziness is not a brand new phenomenon:

From Powell's autobiography-
"It began late one afternoon in the spring of 1979. The President was sitting with a few of us on the Truman Balcony. He had recently returned from a visit to Plains, and we were talking about homefolks and how the quail were nesting and similar matters of international import. Suddenly, for no apparent reason -- he was drinking lemonade, as I recall -- the President volunteered the information that while fishing in a pond on his farm he had sighted a large animal swimming toward him. Upon closer inspection, the animal turned out to be a rabbit. Not one of your cutesy, Easter Bunny-type rabbits, but one of those big splay-footed things that we called swamp rabbits when I was growing up. The animal was clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk. The President confessed to having had limited experience with enraged rabbits. He was unable to reach a definite conclusion about its state of mind. What was obvious, however, was that this large, wet animal, making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth, was intent upon climbing into the Presidential boat."

Apparently, the president shooed the offending rabbit away with his paddle. The story would have died of natural cases, had Powell not made the mistake of passing it along to a reporter, Brooks Jackson of CNN. Still, the reporter wrote the story in a lighthearted fashion. Powell wrongly thought it would be received as a "mildly amusing incident" and laughed it off.

More Powell:
"We were soon corrected. The Washington Post, exercising the news judgment that we in the White House had come to appreciate so keenly, headed the piece 'President Attacked by Rabbit' and ran it on the front page. The more cautious New York Times boxed it on page A-12. That night, all three networks found time to report the amazing incident. But that was just the beginning. It was a nightmare. The story ran for more than a week. The President was repeatedly asked to explain his behavior at town hall meetings, press conferences, and meetings with editors. There was talk of a suit under the Freedom of Information Act to force release of the picture showing the President, paddle and rabbit in close proximity. Shortly after the Reagan administration took office, they stumbled upon a copy of the picture -- apparently while searching for a foreign policy -- and reopened the old wounds by releasing it to the press."