I do not recall who it was — or where I heard it — but someone mentioned that they suspected that Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph was being set-up. That he was being promoted into a federal job with ICE because he was too much of an embarassment to the Bush Administration’s don’t-ask don’t-tell policy on illegal immigration.

Now comes word that the ICE detention center Pendergraph had expected to come to Charlotte — which would relieve the need to try to send deportation candidates to Atlanta — has gone poof.

Details are sketchy — as they always are when Rep. Sue Myrick’s office is involved — but the center is now evidently slated for “elsewhere.” Now is that elsewhere as in Gaston County — or elsewhere as in Gates County? Kinda matters.

Bonus Observation: Does this change have anything to do with our up-in-the-air sheriff situation? Did someone at the federal level take one look at the possibility of having to work closely with a Sheriff Mackey and say no deal? If so, who was it and why?

As always, so many questions.