Mark Sanford, South Carolina's Republican Governor hasn't been seen since Thursday.

Melissa McEwan sums up the twists and turns:

His office first said they had contacted him, then refused to confirm they actually had contacted him, and there were varying tales about his needing to get away from his kids (on Fathers' Day?) to write something or to recover from a bad legislative session, and late yesterday said he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, which... covers the length of most of the Eastern US.

Late Monday night, a spokesperson said his staff had been in touch with Sanford, but as Josh Marshall notes:

A number of news outlets have headlines up with some variation of 'mystery solved' or 'governor located'. But all of these stories, when you dig into them, have the same basic facts. Which is that the governor's spokesman now says he's off hiking. But they admit they don't know just where he is on the Appalachian Trail. And that no one has been in touch with him since last Thursday. That seems like a lot less than solved.

Marshall concludes: "this is starting to sound a lot like the governor is genuinely missing."

Rachel Maddow on the whole affair after the jump ...