Dunleavy spokesman fails and flails

This is what passes for witty repartee from public relations and communications expert Todd Smoldon, who is on the state payroll thanks to Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

He didn’t like my column quoting the press release Dunleavy had printed in the Wall Street Journal and the biblical lesson Dunleavy imparted.

Smoldon’s insults don’t bother me, as I must consider the source and what he sees in the mirror, “a constitutional conservative who believes everyone has been blessed by God to do great things.”

Here is the column I wrote about the Dunleavy press release praising Trump’s plan for a sovereign wealth fund. I quoted the press release correctly and in context.

The last two paragraphs of the Dunleavy press release are as follows:

The Bible’s parable of the talents offers a valuable lesson for government, as it does for spiritual life. The good and faithful servant is the one who takes his employer’s money and increases it, while the unfaithful one simply buries it in the ground. When it comes to America’s abundant natural wealth, we face a similar choice.

As citizens, the federal government is our servant, and we don’t have to be content with letting our public wealth stagnate. We don’t do that in Alaska. With a federal sovereign wealth fund, Mr. Trump and his team have the opportunity to take what we have and multiply it into something of which all Americans can be proud.

A hint to Smoldon—anyone who issues a press release saying a Bible parable offers a valuable lesson for government is not separating the spiritual from the secular, but combining the two.

Dunleavy used a Bible story to bless his personal views about the benefits of resource extraction industries on federal lands, promoting mining and drilling as the work of good and faithful servants.

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