Canine murderess Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota whose tale of shooting her puppy should have earned her a muffin basket and a hearty “thank you” from now-second-worst punchline of a dog owner in politics Mitt Romney, put out a lengthy statement on Sunday defending her actions. Which one has to do when one finds the likes of rabid bigot Laura Loomer referring to you as “heartless.” Imagine what a hideous failure of a person you have to be to sink to that level.
The way you know that Noem knows she stepped in it is by reading the opening of her statement:
I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book – No Going Back.
Wonder if she regrets that title. Maybe for the second printing she can retitle her book Oops, Wait, Let Me Explain How Much I Love All of God’s Creatures.
Because you know it had to kill Kristi Noem to say she can understand she did something to upset people. This is a person who will unapologetically dehumanize migrants fleeing grotesque violence and poverty in other nations, sending her state’s National Guard a thousand miles to the Mexican border to make sure not one brown person’s toe ever touches American soil. This is a person who will loudly trumpet the white supremacist-friendly characterization of migrants seeking asylum at the border as an “invasion” of America.
Noem is also a person who will unapologetically use her gun-toting toddler granddaughter as a prop to score political points at a convention of the National Rifle Association and apparently doesn’t understand the ethical problems of using her office to lean on government departments simply to get her daughter a real estate appraisers’ license. We’re not exactly talking about a non-sociopath here.
Then she found out that even some of the rural-dwelling real Americans she imagines in her head actually do frown on dog murder. Or she remembered that the big-city elitists who frown on dog murder also make up a majority of America’s voting public and she has national ambitions. Or possibly she didn’t want Wonkette to still be mocking her in 12 years like we still mock Mitt Romney. Hard to say.
The rest of her statement is a bunch of defensive I never shy away from tough challenges like curing all the COVID in South Dakota with freedom blah blah blah, plus pointing out that she had the legal right to shoot her dog just in case any lawyers want to invoke those pesky statute of limitations laws:
The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.
True, apparently. But we note she did not mention the other part of the story, which is that killing Cricket seemingly got her so horny to shoot things that she immediately also shot the family goat that had been bugging her. Who knows what other animals she would have dragged to the gravel pit and blown away if a nearby work crew hadn’t spotted her gleefully slaughtering her dog and her goat?
Also, props to the Democratic governors who trolled Noem on social media, which is funny and has the added benefit of making the next meeting of the National Governor’s Association really awkward.
Tim Walz of Minnesota kicked it off by posting a picture of himself feeding his good doggo an ice cream cone, presumably as a reward for not killing anyone’s chickens that day. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan got in on the act, followed by New Jersey’s Phil Murphy. And then it was off to the (non-greyhound track) races.
Among political observers, it is a given that Noem, who is term-limited out of the governor’s mansion in two years, released her book now as something of an audition for the vice president’s slot on Donald Trump’s ticket this fall. Who knows how the former president and hopefully future (and soon) convicted felon will think of this. On the one hand, he notoriously hates dogs. Also, he loves to refer to people whose business and political acumen he admires as “killers.” And he is a great fan of the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un and Bibi Netanyahu, so long as Bibi shows the proper fealty, so he means it literally.
On the other hand, the man has the self-preservation instincts of a mongoose in a Rudyard Kipling story. If he thinks Noem’s new tag as America’s most well-known animal abuser will cost him votes, he’ll have already crossed her off his shortlist.
Sorry about the national ambitions, Kristi Noem! If it helps, Mitt Romney at least got a Netflix documentary out of his presidential run.
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