Gov. Kristi Noem of SD Denies Reports She's Been Having an Affair with a Former Trump Aide

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Like I said yesterday when reports came out about a recent President of the United States of America allegedly calling his wife's chief of staff from Air Force One to refute claims his penis looks like a Mario Brothers mushroom:

I am always cautious about diving into the political realm. I tends to tear people apart at a time when we could all really benefit from coming together. 

But then, some stories transcend the divisiveness and partisanship of petty politics and are able to cross the great schism which exists in our once-great land. Penises that may or may not look like cartoon fungi being one. Sex scandals being another. Either real or alleged. Which brings us to Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who is reportedly one of the rising stars in the Republican party. But whose shooting star might have been knocked off its trajectory by reports she was cheating on her husband with a former Trump aide. Which she is now denying. 

Source - South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem dismissed rumors that she was having an extramarital affair with Trump confidant Corey Lewandowski as 'total garbage' and a 'disgusting lie' rooted in sexism. 

Conservative news site American Greatness claimed to have multiple sources with direct knowledge that Noem, a rising star in the Republican Party, was in the midst of a sexual relationship with Lewandowski. 

… The governor, 49,  has been married since the age of 20 to Bryon Noem, with whom she has three kids. 

Lewandowski, 48, has been married to Allison Hardy since 2005 and has four kids with her.  

American Greatness claimed the affair had been going on for months and that Noem's chief of staff Joshua Shields had resigned due to Lewandowski's butting in.  

Yikes. The article then goes onto describe two other scandals each of them has been accused of. He of sexually creeping on a campaign donor. She of cooking the books to get her daughter a real estate license. Which they also deny. 

Back in the late 1800s, writer Finley Peter Dunne created a character named Mr. Dooley, a fictional Irish barkeep in Chicago who dispensed wisdom in the language of the common folk. (And whose name later appeared on a couple of my favorite pubs that sadly shut down.) One of Mr. Dooley's most oft-repeated sayings was "Politics ain't beanbag." Which I take to mean it's not a kid's game. Today I suppose we could update it to "… it ain't cornhole," but that would get lost in the translation too. The point being, a lot goes on when you step out of private life and start making your living in the public sector. 

I wouldn't begin to try to guess whether or not the allegations are true. I know nothing more than the words in this excerpt I've provided you. Noem and Lewandowski are accused of using their Trump connections to ride the F Train together. He's alleged to have criminally creeped on a donor. She's accused of cooking the books to set her daughter up in a career. All of which they each call a pack of lies. 

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All we know at this point is that either:

A) They're innocent and the victims of three separate smear campaigns, or

B) Have been caught doing some really sketchy shit and lying about it. 

Either way, just sticking to the extra-marital affair report and not the other accusations, politics in South Dakota is way more intense than any of us realized. The sort of thing you'd expect in post-Revolution Paris, and not in America's second least famous Dakota. 

It's also a sign of what's ahead of us as more and more women get elected to higher office. Male politicians getting accused of buttering their sexual toast on both sides - either to derail their careers or because it's true - is going to be so 20th century soon. Hardly worth reporting. The sort of thing influential men have been doing since influence was invented. The idea of that power dynamic being flipped upside down on a regular basis is the stuff of tabloid dreams. And I think we can all embrace a future like that.

While it's only fair to take Gov. Noem's word - she's innocent until proven guilty and has a right to due process and all that - I have to think if the next female politician who gets accused 'fesses up to it and unapologetically admits that "Hell yeah, I was getting some," she'll probably be our next President. At least no one will talk about the shape of her penis.