Hillary Clinton has become the latest Democrat to make fun of a passage from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s book that detailed how she shot and killed her disobedient dog.
“Still true,” Mrs. Clinton wrote on X Monday, referring to a post she made in February 2021 that said, “Don’t vote for anyone you wouldn’t trust with your dog.”
Democrats have been trolling Ms. Noem, a Republican who is considered a top contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, ever since an excerpt from her book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” came out revealing that she shot her dog.
She shot and killed the 14-month-old wirehaired pointer after it killed another family’s chicken flock while they were on their way back from a hunting trip. She was training Cricket to hunt pheasants, but the dog was a lost cause, she said.
“It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done,” she says in the book. “And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”
She also killed a “nasty and mean” goat after dispatching the dog.
The book’s excerpt caught the attention of a group of Democratic governors, who started sharing pictures of their family dogs.
“Post a picture with your dog that doesn’t involve shooting them and throwing them in a gravel pit,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on X with a photo of feeding his dog a sweet treat. “I’ll start.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined the post by adding a photo of her and her two dogs. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s photo showed him lying with his dog on the floor. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s photo features him petting a dog on the floor.
The Democratic National Committee slammed her for the book’s excerpt in a statement, referring to the party as the “Dogmocratic Party.”
“As DNC’s canine companions, we’ve heard a lot from our owners about just how extreme and dangerous Donald Trump and his far-right MAGA allies are – but nothing could prepare us for the truly disturbing and horrifying passages Kristi Noem willingly chose to put in her new book. Our message is plain and simple: If you want elected officials who don’t brag about brutally killing their pets as part of their self-promotional book tour, then listen to our owners – and vote Democrat,” the statement said.
She defended the excerpt Sunday in a lengthy X post, saying the “book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned.”
“My hope is anyone reading this book will have an understanding that I always work to make the best decisions I can for the people in my life,” she said in the X post. “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.”
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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