A Matter of Character
On liars, dogs, family and, most of all, the need for decency in our leaders
For the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, the Democratic Party released a poster with an image of a slick and smiling Richard Nixon and this question: “Would you buy a used car from this man?” That anti-Nixon poster re-emerged when Nixon made another run for the White House in 1968.
Notice that the message was not about his policies or political track record. Its focus was on character—raising doubts about the candidate’s honesty and integrity. It was a time when raising the question of character was a ripe and fruitful strategy to influence the thinking of the voting public.
This poster came to mind in recent days as the question of character has reemerged. Don’t most Americans want a person of decency and integrity running their country? At another time, the answer would have been obvious.
Saturday night, after finishing his jokes, Saturday Night Live host of “Weekend Update” Colin Jost got serious. He took his chance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner—with the President of the United States seated just inches away—to talk about his grandfather and the topic of decency.
Jost said that his grandfather was a Staten Island firefighter and recently passed away. “He helped raise me, and I would not be here today without him,” he said touchingly, turning to President Biden. “You remind me of him. Some of your best qualities remind me of his.”
Jost then said that his grandfather voted for Biden in 2020, the last election that he voted in. And why? “He voted for you because you’re a decent man,” the comedian said with great sincerity.
This was Jost’s moment. A chance to share what he really thinks beyond the often snarky, sometimes clever, usually funny jokes. This was the heartfelt thought that he wanted to end with, the comment that most likely will be what people remember about his appearance as this year’s comedian.
It was an uplifting reminder that character matters—indeed, that the question of character needs to be on the ballot.
The contrast between Jost and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, hot in the running to be Donald Trump’s VP nominee, could not be more stark.
You’ve probably already heard about the excerpt in her soon-to-be-released memoir. Noem decided to include the story of killing her dog, Cricket, a barely-year-old wirehair pointer that she said she hated. Noem complained that the young dog was aggressive, a biter, who killed several chickens and ruined a pheasant hunt by going “out of her mind with excitement.”
Her comment on Cricket, who she decided was “untrainable”? “I hated that dog,” Noem writes, calling her “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless…as a hunting dog.”
So did she search for another owner or take Cricket to the pound? Nope. She got her shotgun and led the dog to a gravel pit.
What kind of person shoots their own dog? What kind of person writes about it, sheds light on it, in the story of her life? And what does this say about Noem’s judgement of what deserves attention—and what she believes will resonate with her book’s readers?
I mean, she didn’t have to include that story. Perhaps she wanted one reader in particular—a possible future employer and sociopath who dislikes dogs—to know about her capacity for cruelty and violence. This was a chance to let him know that she’s ready to do the things, as she put it, that are “difficult, messy and ugly.”
Put a different way: Look at me! I can be a sociopath, too! (Oxford dictionary definition of a sociopath: “A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.”
And one other thing: Kristi Noem wasn’t done after killing poor Cricket. Nope. She goes on to recount killing one of her family’s goats that same day, a farm animal that was “nasty and mean” and smelled bad. She dragged that goat to her gravel pit, too.
Every regular reader of America, America knows that I take the subject of decency seriously. It takes no stretch of the imagination to recognize that this topic has taken on particular importance at a time when a felonious ex-president and presumptive GOP nominee not only relishes cruelty and violence himself, he’s succeeded at making it a feature of his party’s ethos.
Is that what the majority of Americans want? Is that what the GOP thinks is a winning message? Among all the issues that are on the ballot this year, is not the question of character—of cruelty versus decency—high on the list? I think so.
This week the Manhattan jury in the Trump election interference trial heard plenty of nauseating facts—about the the National Enquirer boss David Pecker using his tabloid rag (the real fake news) to fantastically lie about Trump’s rivals and to hide the truth of Trump’s infidelities from the voting public. They heard from witness Pecker how Trump was actively involved in these efforts, both with his dollars and by signing false business records.
Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche showcased one of their key arguments: That Donald Trump is a husband and a father. He “fought back…to protect his family.”
In other words, Blanche is trying to make Trump’s actions appear to be a matter of character—that a good husband and father would want to do whatever he could to keep this damaging information from his family, never mind the infidelities themselves.
Such a defense depends on the jury of 12 women and men believing that the criminal defendant is motivated by such things. But Pecker did not help that ludicrous enterprise, laughable to anyone who’s been sentient these last years.
Pecker, who’s been given criminal immunity as long as he testifies honestly, contradicted Blanche’s assertion like this: “I thought it was for the campaign…his family was never mentioned and [in] the conversations that I had directly with Mr. Trump, his family wasn’t mentioned.”
I think most Americans want a person of decency and integrity running their country. I think it’s why Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 after the criminality and degradations of Nixon. And I think it can be a key reason why Joe Biden is reelected in 2024 after the continuing criminality and degradations of Trump.
But that will take raising the question of character often and loudly in the coming months—and our body politic, despite being terribly broken, recognizing that you can’t have a decent country if you have an indecent and cruel man occupying the White House.
One final note: When our Hazel (now seven but pictured here at eight weeks) was a puppy, she was a serious biter. But we never thought about shooting her for crying out loud. And guess what? She grew out of it.
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Hazel is adorable. All puppies bite, it is part of their socialization to their new and curious surroundings. It is up to the owner to help them understand that some things are okay to bite and others are not. All of that is part of training. Kristi Noem’s story tells us so much about her. As you point out, she chose to share her story.. Why? Secondly in telling her story, she goes on to explain that the dog, still a puppy, was worthless as a hunting dog. Now I grew up among hunters, they had house dogs and they had hunting dogs, the hunting dogs were trained. There is discipline required to do this training. Noem reveals she has little ability for that. And thirdly, she will now be known as a puppy killer.
Now, I do not want to get too far off the rails here, but the ability to kill another living thing because your are too lazy or stupid to train it to be the animal you want it to be, is so telling about her character. I am of the Vietnam generation. I have friends that had to kill another person and it changes you. Even if that person was trying to kill you, you are different for the rest of your life. She killed an innocent happy little puppy. It chokes me up, brings me to tears. She should leave public consciousness forever and that would not be long enough. She will always be known as a “Puppy Killer!”
Noem’s story was to prove that cruelty is the point. I worry about her treatment of people as serial killers often start with injury to animals. She also killed a goat the same day as Cricket. She is a disgrace.