I was never a dog person—until two years ago.
That's when my parents brought home Mazie, an angelic German Shepherd with whom I am obsessed. ("Icon" and "angel" are among the nicknames I've given her.) I don't live with my parents, so seeing Mazie (picture here, you're welcome!) has become a chief reason for returning home. That said...like all dogs, Mazie can occasionally be annoying or misbehave—like when she tries to swipe our freshly cooked dinner from the counter or destroys her bedding or insists upon following our every move around the house because of her attachment issues (we are, like half the dating population, working on it).
Mazie isn't perfect, but her quirks are part of what makes her unique. In other words, and this might sound wild to have to say: We have never once considered shooting Mazie.
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, on the other hand, cannot say the same. You've probably heard by now about how Noem writes in her forthcoming memoir about killing her own puppy after the dog, Cricket, attacked a local family's chickens. As my colleague Inae Oh writes, Noem had many options on how to respond, including training Cricket, but opted to shoot the dog to death in a gravel hunting pit instead. We're not quite sure what was going through Noem's (or the ghostwriter's?) mind when they put that anecdote in the book, which has provoked widespread disgust across the political aisle. (Noem defended the killing, writing on X, "tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.")
But, somehow, things have gotten even worse: In an appearance on Face the Nation yesterday, Noem suggested that President Joe Biden’s dog, Commander, should also be killed, following reports the dog bit Secret Service agents in at least two dozen incidents.
(It's gone a bit under the radar, in comparison, the other scandal here. It emerged in recent days that Noem also included a fake anecdote in the book about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, but admitted on CBS yesterday that "this anecdote shouldn’t have been in the book" and that it will be edited accordingly before publication tomorrow. Noem refused to directly answer host Margaret Brennan's question about whether she actually ever met the dictator.)
I think we can glean many lessons from this debacle, but there does seem to be an obvious one we can all agree on: Don't shoot your dog.
—Julianne McShane
P.S. Did you check out this week's episode of Reveal, about how police exploit requirements to notify the family of a victim they kill in order to protect themselves and their departments from lawsuits? Make sure to listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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