Tell Me You’re An Ignorant City Dweller, And Be Proud Of It

All this kerfluffle about Kristi Noem putting a dog down.

To be honest, I have not read her book. Books by politicos are not my bag, baby. Although I bought a bunch of them early in the century, I have come to realize how much they ultimately bore me and how anachronistic each is after the election it precedes.

I am not even sure that I’ve read the section where she mentioned putting her dog down completely; now, all the Xeroxed outrage just tells us what she said.

But I do remember hearing that the dog attacked the neighbors chickens. And tried to bite its owner. And, the interpretations go, the hotheaded and packing governor of South Dakota pulled a pistol

The original Guardian story does not present the account as it appears in the book, but instead intersperses it with the easily anticipated editorial outrage.

But, you know what? The dog attacked neighbor chickens. The dog tried to bite its owner in a berzerker frenzy. I understand the decision to put the dog down. Especially as she had young children at the time who would also be vulnerable to a berzerker dog.

But it’s run up to election season, so cry “Havoc!” and let slip the stories of Republicans being unkind to dogs somewhere, sometime.

Full disclosure: When my boys were young, neighbors in the new house across the neighbor’s meadow let their pit bulls roam free, and on a couple of occasions they wandered into the back half of Nogglestead. If those dogs had ever, ever posed a threat to my young children at the time, they would have been buried in the copse amongst the cat graves. In the rural areas, they have an abbreviation: SSS. Shoot, shovel, shut up.

So I don’t fault Noem her actions, but she might have been better served remembering the last. Because no matter how authentic and real she might want to be to rural voters, she could certainly not avoid the, erm, dogpile in the media that should have been expected.