Kristi Noem suggests she hasn't read her own book. Just one problem…
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s new defense of her terrifying memoir—the one in which she shot her own puppy and threatened to kill Joe Biden’s German shepherd—seems to be that it was the ghostwriter what did it.
It’s not just these stories of malevolence toward man’s best friend that have gotten Noem in trouble. It turns out she also claims to have made North Korea’s dictator come to heel like a trained dog. Needless to say, Noem never met Kim Jong Un—there’s a reason why they call it the hermit kingdom. So how did this passage make it into her story?
“It was brought to our attention that the upcoming book ‘No Going Back’ has two small errors. This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor,” said a Noem spokesperson somehow named Ian Fury earlier this week.
Now, Noem’s book doesn’t credit a ghostwriter on the cover, which rates her even lower in the honesty department than … Donald Trump, who at least acknowledged his amanuensis on the front of the “Art of the Deal.”
Still, fine, we’ll take her at her word that she didn’t really write her own tome. But is she also claiming she didn’t read it either? How else could her tall tales—which also include an apparently made-up story about canceling a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron, tres désolée—have been “brought to our attention” only now, for the first time?
In fairness, it would be pretty easy to believe that she hadn’t actually read her book, wouldn’t you say? There’s just, as Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas pointed out, one teeny, eensy, very small, micro-problem:
You can even hear Noem say it herself, complete with a little twangy Western theme music, right at the very start:
Hachette Audio presents, “No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” written and read by me, Kristi Noem.
So what do we think the excuse is here? It’s actually an AI-generated simulacrum of Noem? She was strung out on ayahuasca and wasn’t really “there” when she recorded her audiobook? She didn’t understand that memoirs are meant to be factual? Well, don’t try asking her publisher.
“At the request of Governor Noem, we are removing a passage regarding Kim Jong Un from her book No Going Back, upon reprint of the print edition and as soon as technically possible on the audio and ebook editions,” said Center Street in a statement. “Further questions about the passage should be referred to the author.”