“Do you want to talk about something else today?” an exasperated Kristi Noem asked a television interviewer this week. The topic the beleaguered South Dakota governor preferred to avoid was the execution of her dog Cricket – by her – which she describes in her new autobiography, “No Going Back.”
For an inkling of how big a story this is, consider two others that it had to compete with for top billing in the last few days:
That a worm ate part of the brain of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Well, not eat, exactly. It was lodged in his brain, living off nutrients in his body. “Parasite” is a better word than worm, unless you are writing headlines. Anyway, the worm is dead now. The event occurred more than a dozen years ago.
That porn star Stormy Daniels smacked former President Donald J. Trump on his rump with a magazine that had his picture on the cover. This occurred in his hotel room, where they had sex. The revelation came out in Trump’s hush money trial, although much controversy still revolves around which national magazine was used to admonish the former head of the free world. The trial, which is costing taxpayers millions, is over whether Trump falsified records for a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her from telling such salacious stories before his 2016 election.
But the press has pulled out all the stops on Noem’s “poochicide” story. Going deep into the story, a New York Times reporter talked to people in South Dakota to see if the killing of the family dog was common. A dog trainer told her that it is very important “to make sure the right dogs went to the right family.”
Is it illegal to shoot your dog in the backyard? The reporter asked the state’s attorney general, who works for Noem. He replied it was a moot point. The statute of limitations has run out. Fortunately for us, the Times has the resources to go after important stories like this. Other papers can’t. Think about it.
Noem’s book is a campaign biography. These books are ritualistically written to propel someone into higher public office. Noem’s book is an extended love letter to Trump. She wants him to name her as his vice-presidential partner.
“Trump,” Noem writes, “is a fighter.” But not only that. “He really doesn’t think he is better than anyone else. He values everyone. That’s why so many people who have worked for him and his family for years are so loyal to him.”
The dog story is part of the way she makes her case for VP. She shot Cricket in a gravel pit behind the house because he was an unruly, serial chicken killer. She could have taken him to a vet to be put down, but the point of the story is she did it herself. “It had to be done,” she writes. The buck stops there, as it were.
The plot thickens when it turns out she decided that afternoon that “now was as good a time as any to dispose” of the family billy goat. The goat smelled bad and had been butting her kids. She might as well get that done while she was in the mood. Alternatives, such as moving the goat to a distant pasture, apparently were not considered. An editor, if Noem had one for the book, might have suggested leaving the goat story out in case a discerning reader spotted a pattern.
Noem is not the first politician to make a memoir gaff. Dan Quayle devoted an entire chapter of his memoir to his failure to recognize the proper spelling of “potato” during a classroom photo-op. “If I had been asked to spell the word,” he wrote, “I imagine I’d have gotten it right, though I wouldn’t swear to it.” His book was written to burnish his image after he was President George H. W. Bush’s vice president, with the hope perhaps that he had a political future. Have you noticed no one asks, “Whatever happened to Dan Quayle?”
Walter Lippmann, often considered the greatest newspaper pundit of the 20th century, commented that we should want politicians to write their own speeches and books, and clearly say what they think. “Those who cannot speak for themselves are, with very rare exceptions, not very sure of what they are doing and of what they mean. The sooner they are found out the better.”
It seems likely that Noem used a ghostwriter, but leaving that aside, she does say what she thinks. I was glad to see this when I opened the book. I hoped to find positive things to counter all the negative comments. I wanted to balance out the criticism.
It was good, for instance, to read that Noem sensibly believes “America first but not America alone” and that she advocates for more civics instruction in school. Similarly, we should give her credit for criticizing politicians for saying they are working “tirelessly” for the people. “Only politicians use that word,” she says, “and it’s a lie.”
She calls out the Republican National Committee for not doing enough to help its candidates with poll data and messaging, which could have been useful in editing her book.
Unfortunately, the candid memoir is loaded with long strings of trite, odd statements that leave readers with the same feeling they have looking at the book’s typography. The bewilderingly inconsistent typefaces gave me vertigo.
Here are some of Noem’s observations:
“It’s true, we don’t know if we’ll have the same Speaker of the House in a few months or a few years. I’m okay with that.”
In describing how she decides whether to sign bills sent to her by the state legislature, Noem ponderously says she first considers if the legislation is constitutional and what the long and short-term impacts are. “Our entire staff goes through detailed analysis like this for every single bill that’s proposed.” This statement loses something more when it is placed next to this one: “Don’t believe the lie that government is complex.”
In her political education, Noem learned: “Definitely no cowgirl boots at certain functions.” What helps her keep perspective? “Time spent in gas stations and gun shops.” Conversations with average Dakotans are good, but why do we keep talking about guns?
If Noem were president, on her first day in the White House, she would mandate “five a.m. daily workouts for all members of Congress” and “figure out what the heck the United Nations actually does for us.”
A notable factual error crept into the book. “I remember,” Noem said, “when I met the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants. (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all.)”
While it is nice to think Kim should have been quaking in the wake of this encounter, the fact seems to be that she forgot that she never met him. Noem has repeatedly dodged questions on the matter, and staff say the book will be “adjusted.”
The most surprising thing about the book, given what has transpired, is that Noem comes across as someone who has basic decency. The dog story outrages many people and lends itself to endless follow-up stories. But in all the muck of her writing, one gets the sense that she really does respect people and the democratic process.
The common feeling among pundits is that “No Going Back” puts a bullet into her chances of being named Trump’s running mate. But who knows? As she says, gleefully, Trump is “full of surprises.” Besides that, he does not seem to like dogs much.
But here is the big catch. Trump isn’t likely to want people reading the Constitution to him each time he makes a decision.
