During his staged propaganda event for Alaska news organizations Monday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy didn’t want to take any real questions, employing a tactic that works every time.

He refuses to take followup questions.

The secret here is that anyone can evade answering a direct question when the person asking is limited to a single question. You pretend to answer without doing so. Lots of people do it. The only way around this is to have multiple questions.

The Dunleavy rules for dealing with reporters are that a single question can be asked. When Dunleavy doesn’t answer, the propaganda team moves onto another reporter who asks him about a different subject.

On Monday Dunleavy ducked a legitimate question from Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News about why the state released Angela Rodell’s personnel file, but refused to release much of anything about Kevin Clarkson, the former attorney general who lost his job over allegations of sexual harassment.

Dunleavy, at his patronizing best, said the state would send Hopkins the laws “so that you can understand” why Dunleavy can’t reveal anything about Clarkson.

When Hopkins attempted, as is his right, to followup with Dunleavy, the governor whined about why his propaganda staff wasn't stopping him: “Is he going to get 2 questions or 3 questions or how many questions is he gonna get?”

The propaganda staff took this as an order and lied to Hopkins and everyone who witnessed the event: “We don’t have time for you to ask another question,” she said.

Dunleavy had plenty of time. He didn’t want to be forced to answer the question.

Dunleavy then went on for several minutes, lecturing the audience about journalistic standards and honesty and trust. It is galling that Dunleavy would talk about honesty seconds after having his staff lie to prevent him from facing a question he didn’t want to hear.

“I would suggest that folks read what journalism standards and ethics are,” he said.

Dunleavy attacked the Anchorage Daily News for coverage of the firing of Angela Rodell. He also attacked the Anchorage newspaper with a claim that was quickly proven to be false—he claimed the newspaper had not mentioned that a lawsuit about the higher education fund was being handled by lawyers who worked on under former Gov. Bill Walker. That was mentioned in the story.

“When we’re making accusations, for example, that I was intimately involved in the dismissal of somebody for example, in the Permanent Fund, which is a corporation separate from our government. And there is at this point no evidence—and I personally cannot recall ever having a conversation about this—I’m just wondering if we’re gonna get a fair shake during this campaign season? Or if the ADN is going to be a campaign arm for campaigns that are occurring? I can’t answer that.”

I think what really irked Dunleavy the most, though he didn’t admit it, was this podcast by former State Rep. Andrew Halcro that connects the dots to Dunleavy on Rodell’s firing.

About Dunleavy’s claims that he doesn’t “recall ever having a conversation” about firing Rodell. The reason I don’t believe him is that his revenue commissioner, Lucinda Mahoney, who played a key role in Rodell’s removal, would never have done so without getting the OK from the governor’s office.

Plus, Craig Richards, the former Walker AG who went on to work for Dunleavy in opposing the recall, wouldn’t act like an independent agent in all this.

Later in the day, Richards refused to reply to a direct question from Rep. Ivy Spohnholz of the Legislative Budget & Audit Committee about whether he had any communication with the governor’s office about Rodell in the months leading up to her firing. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Spohnholz said, offering the only reasonable interpretation.

She also said Richards appeared to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth, which was a charitable thing to say about his abysmal performance, which did nothing to inspire trust about how the trustees are managing the most important financial institution in Alaska.

Richards, who said it would be best for Alaska to move on and forget about the firing, should be required to disclose his dealings with Dunleavy and Dunleavy’s staff about the plan to get rid of Rodell.

What do Dunleavy and Richards have to hide?

Dunleavy wants Alaskans to believe he has no power over the trustees, but two of them are his direct employees, one of them worked for him as an anti-recall lawyer and he appointed two of the remaining three.

“And I think what the people of Alaska really want is accuracy, facts,” Dunleavy said, advice that he should start following.

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