Kristi Noem Picked a Fight With Kacey Musgraves, and Musgraves Brought Up the Dog

One of the most popular posts on all of Reddit on Monday was a screenshot of a country singer settling an argument with a politician in a single sentence. I've seen congressional hearings run four hours and settle less.

Here's how it went. Kacey Musgraves played two shows over the weekend at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, on her Middle of Nowhere Tour, and had James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, as a guest. Talarico posted his photos from the front row. Kristi Noem, the former South Dakota governor who was recently removed as secretary of homeland security, reposted them and announced that she'd take Ella Langley over Musgraves any day, and Ken Paxton, Talarico's Republican opponent, over Talarico.

This was a strange hill to choose. Langley is having the year of her life; her song Choosin' Texas broke Mariah Carey's record for the most weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. She did not ask to be drafted into this. Being complimented by Kristi Noem in the middle of someone else's fight is like having a stranger at a wedding announce he'd rather have married you. You're flattered for a second, and then you want to leave by the back door.

Musgraves answered on Monday afternoon. She said Noem didn't have a dog in this fight, and if she did, she would have shot it. That's a reference to Noem's 2024 memoir, No Going Back, in which she wrote that she shot her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket, because it was hard to train. The story was widely criticized at the time, and it seems to be the one thing everybody in America remembers about her, which is a hard way to be famous. A man can build bridges his whole life, the old saying goes, but shoot one dog.

I'll admit the reply is mean. It's also the most efficient thing anyone in country music has written since the three-minute song. Noem got to pick the battlefield, and she picked one where the other side has a microphone, a fan base and a perfect memory.

There's a lesson in it for anybody in public life. Before you go after a songwriter, make sure there's nothing in your past that rhymes.