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May 1, 2024

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

Doggone 

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the US gun lobby's National Rifle Association annual meeting.

No one can prove President Harry Truman actually said "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," but the quote is so apt it doesn't really matter.

A rising Republican star has now tried to refashion this maxim for the MAGA era: If you want to get to Washington, tell everyone you shot your dog.

Pundits have long tipped South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem in the race for Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee. Rarely seen pictured without a gun and having made her name mocking Covid-19 restrictions, Noem is beloved among Trump supporters for being a quick-to-give-offense heartland conservative who doesn't suffer liberals gladly. But after the Guardian scooped a copy of her new book, her national career may go to the dogs.

Her book offers the sad tale of Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer, in an attempt to prove Noem is willing to do things that are "difficult, messy and ugly." Noem says the mutt turned out to be unruly and untrainable, once ruining a hunt by "chasing all those birds and having the time of her life," according to the Guardian. After the dog got out of Noem's truck and killed some chickens belonging to a local family, Noem said she realized, "I had to put her down." So she took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her dead. "It was not a pleasant job," she wrote, according to the Guardian. "But it had to be done."

This tragic tale has a twist — Noem said she then twigged that it was also time to dispatch a nasty, smelly goat that her family owned. She dragged the beast to a gravel pit and took aim. She had to retreat to her truck and get a second shell after it survived the first blast.

It says something about modern American politics that Noem believed that boasting about cruelty to animals was a winner. She was clearly posing as tough and politically incorrect and implying that she'd be a scourge of the Washington deep state. She's tried to catch Trump's eye before -- when he was in office she gifted him a model of Mount Rushmore with his head on it alongside the great presidents.

But in this case Noem came across as cruel. She tried to defuse the crisis by explaining that tough decisions happen on a farm. And she's right to an extent. Country folk don't always see sense in paying huge vet bills when the end comes for a domestic animal. If dogs attack livestock and fowl, they can face a grisly fate. But Noem surely had other options — like adoption. Humans can also take responsibility for securing their dogs in vehicles. And dogs don't train themselves.

Noem's allies in politics and conservative media are trying to spin the whole thing as yet another outrage that's offended so-called woke, soft liberals and media elitists who don't understand "real Americans." "Life is a little different in rural America," Rep. Dusty Johnson, Noem's fellow South Dakotan said.

But Noem is in political trouble. For one thing, she's always going to be a punchline as a pooch killer. And while Trump is reputed to dislike dogs, even he might balk at puptricide. If there's one thing he hates, it's being overshadowed. He won't want the tail wagging the dog, so he's hardly likely to nominate a VP who is meaner and tougher than him.

Putting a woman on the ticket would usually appeal to female, suburban and moderate voters whom Trump has a habit of alienating. But Noem's tale of canine frontier justice isn't going to play well in America's dog-walking suburbs.

The world and America

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Israel will launch an operation in the densely populated Gaza city of Rafah "with or without a deal" with Hamas.

At least five people were killed and more than 30 injured in a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Monday.

And a showdown between Mexico and Ecuador over a controversial embassy raid began at the International Court of Justice.

Meanwhile in America, Judge Juan Merchan handed down his first punishment to Donald Trump for violating the judge's gag order in the New York hush money trial Tuesday, fining Trump $9,000 for nine violations.

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison in Seattle after pleading guilty to money-laundering charges last year.

And a unnamed woman was denied a top-secret security clearance due to being a "close" relative of an authoritarian dictator of an unnamed country.

FDOTUS

Presidents love dogs.

First canines don't know their owner is the most powerful man in the world. Unconditional loyalty from a furry friend must also be appealing to presidents at the top of their treacherous political trade. All a pup wants from a POTUS is a belly rub, a walk and two meals a day.

Theodore Roosevelt loved all animals and kept a pack of dogs as pets. The most famous presidential pup might be Fala, who got Franklin Roosevelt through the darkest days of World War II. The Scottish terrier was photo-bombing before it was fashionable, and was pictured alongside Winston Churchill. Fala went everywhere with FDR by land and sea. And his owner shrewdly rebuked Republicans who accused him of using tax payer funds to transport his mutt. "I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself … but I think I have a right to object to libelous statements about my dog," he said.

Fala outlived his master and was eventually buried near FDR's grave. His statue keeps watch near the 32nd president's memorial in Washington.

Roosevelt with Fala and Ruthie Bie in Hyde Park, New York, circa 1940s.

A dog may have saved Richard Nixon's political career.

When critics accused him of having a personal slush fund, he highlighted a cocker spaniel called Checkers that was gifted to his daughter. "The kids, like all kids, loved the dog," Nixon said in a pioneering TV broadcast, "and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're going to keep it."

The Checkers speech saved Nixon's running mate spot on Dwight Eisenhower's ticket in 1952 and eventually paved his own route to the presidency.

Perhaps if he'd spent more time in the 1970s playing fetch and less time thinking about bugging Democrats, he might have avoided the Watergate scandal that caused his resignation.

Then-US president Barack Obama greets his dog Bo outside the Oval Office of the White House on March 15, 2012.

FDR and Nixon understood that being kind to dogs can humanize a president. That's why many commanders-in-chief love being pictured with them.

JFK's family had a menagerie at the White House, but his favorite was a Welsh terrier called Charlie.  Lyndon Johnson had beagles – and caused a storm when he was pictured lifting one up by its ears. Ronald Reagan's pals were Lucky and Rex. Bill Clinton's chocolate lab Buddy was by his side when he was in the doghouse over his affair with a White House intern.

And Barack Obama's adoption of his first Portuguese water dog Bo was facilitated by Sen. Edward Kennedy, and became a legacy reminder when the liberal lion passed away.

Then-U.S. President George W. Bush walks off Air Force One carrying the family pets Barney (R) and Ms. Beazley (L) as he arrives at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland in August of 2006.

But beware the FDOTUS (First Dog of the United States) that misbehaves. George W. Bush's Barney bit a reporter and launched a thousand metaphors about White House press tensions. And President Joe Biden's German shepherds Major and Commander were sent packing from the White House compound after multiple biting incidents.

And who can forget the story of Seamus, who Mitt Romney strapped to the roof of the family car in a kennel for a long trip to Canada years before becoming the Republican nominee in 2012. When the Irish setter got the runs, Romney reportedly hosed him and the car down and got back on the road. The dog "loved it" up on the roof, the candidate's wife, Ann, once said. But the story became a media obsession and fueled feelings that something about Romney was a bit strange, during a campaign in which Obama's team lacerated his character.

As Noem now knows. You can't afford to botch the dog politics.

Then-President Gerald Ford swims with his dog, Liberty, at Camp David in February of 1974. 

Thanks for reading. 

On Wednesday, 2024 GOP presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump, holds campaign rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan. Florida's 6-week abortion ban takes effect. Citizens in Greece are expected to participate in strikes and demonstrations.