Posted on 04/27/2024 10:09:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have been an admirer of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem ever since she first showed up on my radar after her election in 2019. She has established a solid record as a conservative with ambitious policy goals that have served her state very well and she's an excellent communicator. She's been well up on my list of potential Trump veepstakes picks because she brings a lot to the table. But all of that came crashing down for me yesterday evening when The Guardian published a review of her upcoming book, "No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward." It sounds as if most of the book is a fairly typical political analysis of the dangers of rampant progressivism and the need to restore traditional American values. But it also contains one highly disturbing episode from her life when she killed one of her own dogs, a German wirehaired pointer named Cricket who was only 14 months old. Her description of the incident is rather horrifying and I fear it speaks poorly of her character. (Warning: Potentially disturbing content ahead.)
In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip.
But in 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.
“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.
What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.
Noem describes attempting to train Cricket to hunt pheasant and the dog's failure to adapt to typical hunting procedures. Rather than locating game and "pointing" (hence the breed name) at birds so the hunter can take them, Cricket would "go out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”. It sounds as if Cricket wasn't well-suited to be a hunting dog, but was certainly very happy. Noem even described Cricket as "the picture of pure joy."
Despite all of that, she took the dog out to a gravel pit and shot her with a rifle. She later returned and did the same to a goat. She reports that the uncastrated goat was "nasty and mean." Having worked summer jobs on family farms growing up, I can assure you that uncastrated male goats kept for breeding are aggressive and territorial. It's just their nature.
In a way, I suppose I can understand why Noem would choose to share this story. She's trying to make the point that she is "willing to do anything, difficult, messy, and ugly if it simply needs to be done." That can be true at times in politics to be sure, but as a leader, character also counts for a lot. As I've written here before, my wife and I first met volunteering at an animal shelter. Dogs mean a lot to us and we've had many over the decades we've been together. If you have a dog that you're raising for hunting and it doesn't work out, you can find a new home for the dog, particularly when it is so young and "the picture of pure joy."
Even if you can't manage to find a new home yourself, you could take the dog to a shelter. If all else fails, you might feel you have no other choice, but you should euthanize the dog humanely. We've had to take too many of our dogs to be put to sleep but they were all suffering from extreme old age and/or painful, untreatable diseases. (We probably could have paid off our house five years earlier with all the money we've spent on veterinary bills.) If the Noem family was operating a farm, they obviously knew and had access to a veterinarian. It's a requirement for such an operation. You don't just drag the dog to a gravel pit and shoot it.
In the book, Noem writes, “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” The Guardian correctly describes that passage as possibly being "the greatest understatement of election year." I agree. I wish I hadn't learned this about her.
To be clear, this doesn't take away from Noem's commendable performance as the Governor of South Dakota. And if Donald Trump does wind up picking her to be his running mate, I won't hold it against him or fail to vote for him. (We vote for presidents, not vice presidents.) But if she were to move forward and run for national office on her own, I would be forced to find a third-party candidate to vote for. As I said above, character is also important in leaders. I could not, in good conscience, vote for Kristi Noem. That's how important this is to me.
How she could be so dumb to write about killing a puppy basically is beyond me.
Jazz is a RINO who probably believes the meat she eats came from the meat fairy, and not an animal.
What a crud statement from her!
Trump will not pick her.
All those who defend her actions must also turn against Trump.
She can’t handle a simple 14 month old dog.
She had better produce an ER bill for the bite.
Or display the scars of the savage and brutal attack.
Being not in Noem’s shoes, so to speak, I won’t pass kneejerk judgment on something I know nothing about.
But I can certainly see how the incident, regardless of what really happened, will be used against her.
Snowflake Alert.
This Jazz girly has swallowed the PETA Kool aid. And so has more than a few Freepers.
Farm folk don’t pay vets to euthanize animals. Bullets are cheaper and justcas humane.
97% of Americans do not understand this.
Puppy? Let me know when you adopt a “puppy” that attacks and eats your children.
A lot of people don’t understand that dogs aren’t only pets, some are actually working animals that are expected to do a job and their owners depend on their ability to do that job for their livelihood, and that if they can’t do their job their owners don’t have the resources either time or money to keep them as pets.
This is the reality of rural living, certainly no one who has only lived in the comfort of sheltered urban life could ever understand it.
bttt
Democrats wouldn’t vote for her anyway. Any conservative who wouldn’t vote for her because of this is shallow and a turncoat.
How about she bring you the dead chickens that Cricket killed?
You know nothing about this situation.
She killed a dog?
Maybe the postal workers union will endorse her.
She may even become “Cat Fancier” magazine’s “Woman of the Year.”
That's a coward's way out. You know they'll kill the dog. And since the responsibility to kill that dangerous dog fell on Noem - she did it.
She’s gone for me. Even if I voted for Trump, I’d find a way to work against her as publicly and widely as I could. He says he wants a VP who could step into that job. NO WAY do I want someone like that NEAR the presidency. We have had enough of incompetent VPs.
She crossed a bright red line for me and I’d fight hard against her, while fighting FOR Trump. Yes, I fully understand I’d be placing a burden on Trump, but he’d deserve it if he made another of the stupid nominations that were his one besetting sin for me.
I hear PETA supports Biden. You should too.
At least Noem had the guts to do the right thing. Biden has let his dangerous dog bite Secret Service Agents.
24 times.
The dog apparently killed some neighbor’s chickens and so on. Any dog doing similar in farm country is likely to be shot.
You would’ve thought she could’ve taken him to a shelter for adoption as a pet.
Aww how sweet. Now. How about posting pictures of the dead chickens Cricket “murdered”?
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