CRAIG BROWN: The killer who wants to be Donald Trump’s running mate

It has become fashionable in the publishing world for books by politicians to bear urgent, world-saving titles.

Liz Truss chose to call her recent memoir Ten Years To Save The West, rather than the more plausible 45 Days To Go Down The Plug Hole.

Truss clearly looked to America for her title. Recent titles there include How To Save America: A Tactical Guide For Practical Patriots; To save America; Saving America: 7 Proven Steps to Help Government Deliver Great Results; 12 Simple Solutions to Save America; and so forth.

A book by Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, will be published next month.

The long-winded title is a mishmash of all the other titles: No Going Back: The Truth On What’s Wrong with Politics And How We Move America Forward.

Noem hopes to be Donald Trump‘s running mate for this year’s US presidential elections.

To that end, she’s been trying to get his attention for a while — in 2020, she presented him with a four-foot model of the presidential monument on Mount Rushmore, including Trump’s own head.

Her upcoming book is another step in her campaign for the vice presidency.

On the cover, she poses in front of the American flag while playing with her shiny hair with one hand.

The content is intended to appeal to Trump and his supporters. She portrays herself as someone who is not afraid to make difficult decisions.

As an example of her willingness to remain steadfast, she has chosen to describe the day she killed the family dog.

“Cricket was a wirehaired pointer about fourteen months old,” she recalls.

One day she took Cricket pheasant hunting with older dogs.

But Cricket was too lively, ‘crazy with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.

On the way home, Noem stopped to talk to a local family when Cricket jumped out of her truck and “acted like a trained assassin.” . . Taking one chicken at a time, squeezing it to death with one bite and then dropping it to attack another.”

When Noem finally caught Cricket, she “turned around to bite me.” Despite all this, Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy’.

At this point, Noem decided to stand firm.

“I hated that dog,” she writes.

Cricket was, she thought, “untrainable” and “absolutely worthless… It was then that I realized I had to put her down.”

So, gun in hand, she led Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her dead. “It wasn’t a pleasant job, but it had to be done.”

But it didn’t stop there: ‘After it was over, I realized there was still an unpleasant job to be done.’

Eek! Her attention now turned to a family goat with an “annoying and mean” personality.

Not only did the poor goat smell “disgusting, musky, rancid,” but he also enjoyed chasing Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.

To the rest of us, this may seem like normal goat behavior.

Rare is the goat who takes the trouble to dab himself with Old Spice or Lynx before playing cat’s cribs with the children.

But Noem was out for revenge. She “dragged him to a gravel pit,” pulled out her gun and shot him.

But the inconsiderate goat jumped aside and escaped with a wound. Noem had to go back to her truck for a new bullet.

She then “rushed back to the gravel pit and set him down.”

When her daughter Kennedy came home from school, she “looked around in confusion” and asked piteously, “Hey, where’s Cricket?”

It is not yet known whether these deadly revelations have made Governor Noem more or less attractive to Trump.

But Noem remains unrepentant and can even boast of another killing spree. ‘We love animals, but on a farm these kinds of difficult decisions happen all the time.

‘Unfortunately, a few weeks ago we had to put down three horses that had been in our family for 25 years.’

In light of her dog’s death, perhaps Governor Noem should now rename her book, No Going Bark.

And what about our own Liz Truss, who is also busy sucking up to Trump? How far is she willing to go?

If I were Larry, the Downing Street cat, I would make myself scarce.