Recruiting workers a better use of governor's time

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been traveling a lot to Asia, Houston and Washington, D.C., working hard to sell government officials and the private sector on the decades-old vision of an Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline to make the state rich again.

But while peddling the dubious prospects of a megaproject — one of the most expensive natural gas developments anywhere in the world — the governor has been absent from his day job. He hasn’t been fiddling, and the state isn’t burning like it does during the wildfire season, but he has been playing to the news media and elected officials while Alas...