Wag the dog: Kristi Noem’s puppy tale reads even worse in print

The only thing worse than the dead puppy saga in South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s new book is the tall tale that isn’t there anymore.

Any reference to Noem’s alleged, unlikely meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un had been scrubbed — at the author’s request — from the e-book edition I downloaded. Which is a shame, because the original story was the most savage burn of South Dakota Sunday schoolers I have ever read.

“I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un,” Noem wrote in advance copies of the book, which was officially released on Tuesday. “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).”

Noem’s book tour has devolved into a Saturday Night Live punchline.

Interviewers have pointed out how unlikely it would have been for Noem — who has never set foot in North Korea — to get into a face-off with the shadowy leader of a nuclear power, either as a congressional backbencher or as top executive of America’s 46th-most populous state.

Noem — who writes “we need truth from leaders” — has shrugged off questions with an airy “I’ve met with many, many world leaders,” while refusing to say whether she met with this particular leader.

Her book opens with the governor at the White House, consoling staffers terrified by a nearby “massive, and at times, violent protest. … The streets were filled with rioters, agitators, and those hell-bent on destroying America.”

This wasn’t Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn the election he lost. This was six months earlier, during Black Lives Matter protests.

You won’t find much about Jan. 6 in this book. But what you will find is a lot more detail about the day the governor of South Dakota got her goat.

Let us turn the pages of “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics And How We Move America Forward” to the BAD DAY TO BE A GOAT chapter.

It was also, you may recall, a bad day to be a boisterous young wirehair pointer named Cricket, who had just wrecked a pheasant hunt for a group of visitors to the Noem family’s hunting lodge.

“The hunt was ruined. I was livid,” Noem wrote. She crated all the other dogs along for the hunt, but left Cricket loose in the back of her truck.

“If she was dumb enough to jump out, then good riddance,” Noem continued. “After what she had pulled that day, I didn’t care.”

When Noem stopped at a neighbor’s house, her undertrained and unsecured bird dog went on a rampage through her neighbor’s chickens. Enraged, Noem paid the crying neighbors for the carnage and dragged Cricket home.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote. “I stopped the truck in the middle of the yard, got my gun, grabbed Cricket’s leash and led her out into the pasture and down into the gravel pit.”

After shooting her puppy, the hero of our story “realized another unpleasant job needed to be done. Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat.”

This goat was a jerk, Noem writes. It was mean, it was nasty, it smelled terrible, it chased her children, knocked them down and left their clothes smelling as bad as the goat. It was, in short, a goat.

“I went down to the corral, caught the goat, and dragged him out to the gravel pit. I tied him to the post,” she wrote.

“But when I went to shoot him, he jumped at the last second. My shot was off and I needed one more shell to finish the job,” she continued. “Problem was, I didn’t have one. Not wanting him to suffer—”

Too late, Kristi Noem. Leaving the wounded goat tied to the stake, she hustled back to her truck, grabbed a shell, and trekked back to finally put her wounded animal out of its misery.

Noem’s book tour misery is just beginning.

Battered by bipartisan outrage from America’s animal lovers, her hopes of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate appear deader than her dog, according to Politico.

Doggedly, Noem turned to Fox Business Network on Tuesday morning, searching for a friendly face. Anchor Stuart Varney had more questions about Cricket and Kim Jong Un.

“Enough, Stuart. This interview is ridiculous, what are you doing right now?” Noem snapped. “You need to stop.”

Varney didn’t stop.

“We’ve been consumed with emails saying ‘I won’t vote for this person,’” Varney said. “‘I won’t vote for Trump if he puts her in the vice presidential spot.’”