Kristi Noem tries to explain why she killed her puppy. Right or left, we can all agree it’s an abhorrent tale

Luckily for the GOP, dogs can’t vote.

But let’s begin with the one positive in this wretched tale. In this age of deep political division, Kristi Noem has achieved the impossible. She has united liberals and conservatives. Oh, we may disagree on foreign policy, taxation, immigration, abortion …

But we can all agree on this: killing a puppy is abhorrent.

Ms. Noem is the governor of South Dakota. If animals could take out restraining orders, she would also be named in thousands of cases brought by scared dogs, goats, chickens, cats, pigs, horses and any species that fears getting impulsively shot at point-blank range.

The governor, who recently filmed a bizarre infomercial for a cosmetic dentist, is back in the news this week. Her upcoming memoir is titled “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.”

A better name: “Going Back: The Truth on How I Destroyed My Political Career by Bragging About Canine Murder.”

The Guardian obtained an excerpt and zeroed in one damning passage: “Trump VP contender Kristi Noem writes of killing dog — and goat — in new book.”

It seems Noem once owned a wirehair pointer named Cricket. One day, Kristi took Cricket out for a pheasant hunt. But Cricket, just 14 months old, was not trained for the task at paw. Instead, as Noem writes, Cricket was “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”

A puppy acting like a puppy? Where’s my sawed-off shotgun?

Here, let me include a literal trigger warning. Noem took Cricket to a gravel pit and blew her brains out. Then Noem killed one of her goats that smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid.”

It’s a good thing bailiffs do not act similarly when Donald Trump enters court.

After bipartisan outrage this week — you are doomed when both Rick Wilson and Jeanine Pirro can find common ground — Noem tripled down by saying she also recently gunned down three horses. There should be signs around her ranch to warn stray cats of imminent death.

Is it fair to smear an entire political party as animal abusers? No.

But I can’t imagine Barack Obama even raising his voice to a gerbil. I don’t recall a Democrat taking a 12-hour road trip with a family pooch strapped to the roof. That was Mitt Romney and his dog Seamus. Was the son of Mike Huckabee not accused of killing a dog at Boy Scout camp? Was a Republican operative not arrested for kicking a dog in 2022? Did hundreds of dogs not die from experiments by GOP Senate candidate Dr. Oz?

If dogs could vote, Democrats would hold every public office in America.

Joe Biden’s pet, Commander, moved out of the White House last year after a number of biting incidents. The German shepherd was placed in a new home. What Biden did not do was take Commander out to the Rose Garden and put two bullets behind his ear while shouting, “Malarkey!”

Forced into damage control, Noem tried to rationalize shooting a puppy in the face with tweets such as: “(p)eople are looking for leaders who are authentic, willing to learn from the past, and don’t shy away from tough challenges.”

Psst. Hey, Barbie the Barbarian? A tough challenge is doing the right thing even if it threatens to destroy your career. GOP house speaker Mike Johnson allowing a congressional vote on foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan?

That was moral courage. That was leadership. No animals were harmed.

Puppy murder? That just makes you a monster with bleached teeth.

How is this woman even allowed to own a pet? She assassinated a young bird-dog that was never trained to meet her hunting expectations? That’s like strangling a parrot you never talked to because it failed to pick up Latin.

To read the excerpts in the Guardian is to understand why people like Marjorie Taylor Greene are so highly unpleasant. Or why Lauren Boebert has posed with more automatic rifles than Rambo. These people are all cut from the same misanthropic cloth.

They believe Jesus was heavily armed and not afraid to gun down chihuahuas.

Kristi Noem isn’t an “authentic leader.” She’s an unspeakably cruel follower in a GOP clown car filled with dipsticks and sadists and reality deniers. Curiously, but unsurprisingly, she concluded Cricket was both “the picture of pure joy” and “less than worthless.”

In Trumpville, you see, worth is measured by rage and grievance.

Cricket would still be alive had she just growled at a photo of Hillary Clinton or mauled an illegal immigrant. Compare this week’s wretched tale to Jon Stewart’s recent tearful goodbye to his three-legged rescue dog.

Now ask yourself one question: Do I want to live in a world filled with Jon Stewarts or Kristi Noems?

I know how Cricket would answer. And how she’d vote.