The reporter asked a simple question at Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s state-managed publicity show Tuesday: “You and Dr. Zink have both continually advocated for masks as an effective way to reduce the spread of the virus. Could you walk me through the intent behind preempting Anchorage’s mask order for state buildings?”

Dunleavy replied:

“We’ve already and we’ve always been advocating for masks. We do a lot of telework within the state buildings. In other words, we have people home, working. We advocate for distancing. We advocate for wearing masks where appropriate. We advocate again, trying not to congregate in large groups because these are the things we know that are really tools to help mitigate the spread. And so we’ve been doing this in the state buildings. We’ve got a system, we have a ferry system in Southeast where folks are wearing masks because of the closed-in nature of the work there inside of these boats.

And so we’re going to continue to look at everything as I’ve mentioned. And we’ll make appropriate decisions. But right now, as we have for the past several months, the past several months, it was Alaskans wanting to make sure that we work together and willing to work together that got us to the point where we are today. We have some of the best statistics, I don’t think anyone can argue with that. We’ll keep an eye on things and see if things keep increasing. And not just the actual counts in the positivity count, but also in these bed counts. And so we’re going to take a look at everything. We’re going to keep monitoring things and we’ll adjust where we need to.”

The obvious thing to do in response to this meandering collection of more than 200 words is to repeat the question: “Could you walk me through the intent behind preempting Anchorage’s mask order for state buildings?”

But the structure of these state-controlled events is such that when the governor declines to answer a simple question no one calls him on it and he moves on to the next topic. He doesn’t want to talk about why he went out of his way to tell state employees they didn’t have to wear masks on state property in Anchorage.

My take is that it was a political shot at Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, based on shaky legal grounds provided by Attorney General Kevin Clarkson. Dunleavy tried to distract everyone with a hefty helping of word salad. It worked.

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