The IRS is NOT investigating Gov. Nikki Haley (R, SC).

Welcome to South Carolina! Here’s your accordion.

You may remember that a few days ago a minor South Carolinian political blog tossed out the very serious allegation that South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was about to be indicted by the Justice Department for alleged tax fraud involving her parents’ temple*. The keyword? “Imminent.” Well, it turns out that the IRS is not actually investigating either the Governor or the temple (H/T @RBPundit) in fact, if I’m reading this correctly the entire thing was more or less based off of the usual bureaucratic paperwork (H/T Hot Air Headlines). The goofball progressive blogger n00b (some guy named Logan Smith) that put up the article in the first place at first tried to stand by his anonymously-sourced allegations, but has since more or less given up and done one of the more grudging and passive-aggressive retractions that it’s been my pleasure to read lately. I don’t even think that Smith is going to get fifteen minutes out of this; and, of course, he’ll never get another shot.

Tragic.

Annnnnd that’s pretty much it, at this point: absent further developments this story looks to be going nowhere. I’m sure that people are not surprised. I’m also sure that people remember the fun and games from the 2010 gubernatorial elections; back during the primary the establishment put together what had to have been one of the most laughable accusations of adultery in recent political history. That it obviously doesn’t work doesn’t really matter; this is how they play down in South Carolina. Which is to say, dirty – and as this exercise indicates they’re not particularly shy about using New Media sources to do their dirty work for them. Note that I am not saying that every single political blog in South Carolina is corrupt: merely that it’s wise to get… confirmation… on some of the juicier stories that bubble up out of there.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*You may be forgiven for thinking that reminding South Carolinian voters that Governor Haley’s parents are practicing Sikhs was actually the whole point of the exercise. Progressive blogger, remember? Those people really do think that the Right cares about that sort of thing.