Cockburn has long regarded the Easter bunny as the least convincing of all the holiday-themed characters. Give him jelly beans, malt eggs, even a couple verses from “All Creatures of Our God and King” — but leave the giant rabbits out of it, says he.
That’s why he was so alarmed by video that emerged from the president’s annual Easter egg roll on Monday. The footage shows Biden chatting with a reporter who asks him a question about Afghanistan. He’s just beginning to answer when suddenly the White House’s resident Easter bunny lunges between him and the press. The creature turns to Biden and waves, while the leader of the free world turns obediently and walks away.
Far be it from Cockburn to deny that the rotund rabbit had a point. After all, the last time the president went freelancing on foreign policy, he accidentally called for regime change in Russia. Damage control in this White House is surely an all-hands-on-deck effort, and that includes towering albino jackrabbits in purple dresses.
Still, the footage is a bit…creepy. Cockburn can’t help but picture the president and the bunny walking in silence back to the Oval Office. There’s a moment of tension between them, upon which the bunny slowly sits down at Biden’s desk, slams its fist, and points at the president, who bows his head.
Our Founding Fathers did not intend for this country to be governed by an eight-foot-tall anthropomorphic rabbit. And while it’s not clear who was behind this cottontail coup, Twitter’s sleuths quickly identified a suspect: Angela Perez, a White House press assistant, who tweeted a picture of the bunny sitting at her desk with the caption “Hopping on a Zoom call.” Another person of interest is Meghan Hays, the White House’s director of message planning, whom a source told the Hill was on rabbit costume duty.
One name we can rule out is Jill Biden, the First Lady, who is often accused of being the power behind the throne. Yet Dr. Biden was pictured standing beside the bunny with her husband, waving to onlookers. Also cleared is White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who was ambushed by the autocratic animal during a briefing on Monday.
At this moment, all we know for certain is this: this thing runs deep.