In July, The State newspaper heard that Gov. Nikki Haley's 14-year-old daughter had been given a job at a state-run gift shop, the paper then asked questions about the hiring process.
At issue were concerns that the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism job — an agency that Haley appointed the head of — may have unfairly hired Haley's daughter, giving her 20 to 25 hours of $8 per hour work per week in a tight job market.
It was a matter to which the Haley administration responded through a spokesman by saying, "The State newspaper – the reporter who wrote it, editors who approved it, and ownership who published it – should be ashamed for printing details of a fourteen year old’s life and whereabouts. We have nothing more to say."
I'll point you to the paper's report over here.
Now expect to hear more about this one, not as much for the matter at stake (concerns over favoritism for an $8 an hour gig) but for how Haley stonewalled a discussion and refused to belay concerns over nepotism.
Update July 26: Political columnist Brad Warthen has done some solid reaction and pondering on this story, in part:
The lesson to be learned here is obvious: This governor, when backed into a corner, will use hypocritical obfuscation in an effort to manipulate an emotional backlash reaction from her base so that she can hide behind it, rather than give straight answers.
Most telling on that score was the fact that Gov. Haley herself has consistently disclosed information about her children and their doings, even to providing the name of her daughter’s orthodontist — and yet has the nerve to (apparently) induce the head of SLED to say, absurdly, that disclosing that her daughter has a job that is just outside the governor’s office and protected by more than one layer of security somehow threatens her safety.
