Mitt Romney hits Barack Obama for eating dog meat in wake of Kristi Noem ... trends now
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney was asked Tuesday about South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's dog-killing scandal and used his answer to settle a score with his ex-political rival, former President Barack Obama.
Romney got dragged politically when he ran for president in 2008 and 2012 for strapping a pet carrier to the car roof in 1983 and traveling 12 hours to Canada with Seamus the Irish setter tucked inside.
The dog protested by having diarrhea in his crate - and Americans objected by not electing Romney and reelecting Democrat Obama instead.
Now with a new dog-related political scandal, the Capitol Hill press corps swarmed Romney this week after Noem, a possible VP pick for former President Donald Trump, outed herself as a dog killer.
'I didn't eat my dog. I didn't shoot my dog. I loved my dog and my dog loved me,' Romney told reporters, according to Mediaite.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney was asked Tuesday about Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's dog-killing scandal after a dog-related scandal tainted his 2008 and 2012 presidential runs
Romney was accused of animal cruelty for putting his Irish setter Seamus (pictured) in a crate and attaching it to his car's roof for a 12-hour drive to Canada for a family vacation in 1983. Seamus suffered from diarrhea during the trip
Obama admitted to eating dog meat as a kid during the years he and his mother lived in Indonesia.
He made light of his dog-related scandal during the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner.
'What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?' he asked, riffing off the famous Sarah Palin line.
'A pit bull is delicious,' Obama said.
Noem's scandal started when the Guardian got an early copy of her new book, No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, and reported that she had gunned down her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer and a male goat.
The governor said she wanted to show she's capable of dealing with anything that's 'difficult, messy and ugly.'
But critics, including Romney, mostly found the dog's death unnecessary.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem writes in her forthcoming book about shooting and killing her 14-month-old dog Cricket after the pooch ate the neighbor's chickens and ruined a pheasant hunt. She has faced criticism from both sides of the political aisle
Former President Barack Obama admitted to eating dog meat as a kid when his family moved to Indonesia (pictured front center in 1972)
'I cannot imagine circumstances that would lead one to take one's dog to a gravel pit, particularly an 11 month old and shoot it,' the Utah senator added, slightly messing up Cricket's age at the time of the dog's grisly death.
'Other people may have a different point of view,' Romney offered.
In the book, the governor writes that she shot Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer at the gravel pit on her family property, moments before her children came home from school.
The dog, Noem claimed, had an 'aggressive personality' that
