Governor is on a slippery slope with ski secrecy

Two weeks have passed and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still has not said anything publicly about his strangely secretive ski accident.

Not an “ouch.”

Only canned comments in a press release, like: “Today I woke up feeling great and I am back to work.”

Not even a self-deprecating joke in his inaugural address Friday.

Let others analyze that fine, uplifting speech, which can be capsulized in one sentence: He declared war on conservative ideologues and upstart Republican legislators.

That will be a continuing story this year in the Capitol.

For now, I’m still steamed about the ski secrecy because it smacks of a public-be-damned attitude.

True, the governor has been laid up with a fractured femur -- surgically repaired with wires and screws -- and can’t be blamed for not rushing out on crutches to regale audiences, TV crews and reporters with details of the holiday mishap.

But he can be blamed for not authorizing his “communications” specialists to immediately flush out basic details for the curious. And the advisors can be faulted for not pressing the governor and his wife, former TV journalist Maria Shriver, on the need for releasing a few harmless little facts.

Facts, like: How did the governor fall? Who was skiing with him? How did he get off the mountain? Which hospital?

Those hardly warrant being classified as state secrets.

To recap, the governor on Dec. 23, while on a skiing vacation with his family in Sun Valley, Idaho, “suffered a fractured femur,” was taken to a hospital for X-rays and was “soon discharged.” He went back to his family’s Sun Valley home for Christmas, but was told he’d need surgery after returning to L.A. Nobody else was involved in the skiing accident.

That’s all the information the governor’s office released. It came in an e-mail to reporters at 8:06 on a Saturday night, nearly eight hours after Schwarzenegger had broken his thigh bone. After that, aides pretty much clammed up, pleading ignorance.

Times reporter Deborah Schoch, racing a deadline, somehow cobbled together a story, noting that details “were sketchy.”

What details did emerge in subsequent days were gleaned by Times reporter Peter Nicholas and the Idaho Mountain Express near Sun Valley.

Schwarzenegger, 59, had been skiing with ski instructor pal Adi Erber. The governor was standing still, Erber told Nicholas, when his ski pole caught on a ski. He tripped over it and fell. The governor, in pain, was hauled down the mountain in a rescue team’s toboggan.

But the gov’s office never would confirm that info. And Erber also soon clammed up.

And what’s wrong with divulging such benign tidbits?

“The governor was on a personal vacation with his family. He is entitled to privacy like everyone else,” says Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger’s communications chief.

“What’s important is information relevant to the governance of California. The focus was on getting out information about his health, his well-being and any impact to the governing of California.”

Ah, yes, there was that post-op picture of Schwarzenegger lying in a hospital bed, in a gown, signing some paper. On the bedside tray were a hairbrush, an unlit cigar and a laptop computer that I’m told he never uses.

Several “health update” press releases assured the public that the governor was alert and working. It’s as if the image makers had confused him with a president -- worried that if Nevada sensed a weakness in California’s governor, it might invade.

Sorry, the working-in-bed picture didn’t do it for me. I wanted to know, with the first news break, what had happened on that mountain.

Because when a politician and his advisors get tight-lipped, I start thinking: cover-up. Was he up on that slope with someone he shouldn’t have been? Was he drunk? Was he trying to sneak on the lift without paying?

Was he embarrassed -- this champion bodybuilder -- standing still and breaking a leg? He shouldn’t have been. The ski patrol rescued six people off the same slope that day, according to the local newspaper.

Broken bones aren’t anything new to skiers. A fractured femur makes even an old action hero seem human, rather than robotic. And politicians need to be humanized.

Not all information emanating from a politician need be scripted and spun. Some can be spontaneous.

It’s not so much that the public has a “right” or a “need” to know how a governor busts a leg while skiing. But it deserves to know. It deserves to have its curiosity satisfied. After all, nearly 4.9 million Californians voted to reelect Schwarzenegger in November. They deserve to be treated as friends, not brushed off.

But this governor, far more than any recent predecessor, shields his private life from public light. He never discloses where or when he goes on vacation -- just announces he has “left the state” -- and usually doesn’t even take an aide with him, only some CHP bodyguards. That’s one reason why information was so skimpy from Sun Valley.

Not everybody agrees with me, of course. Republican consultant Dan Schnur, who was Gov. Pete Wilson’s chief spokesman, says: “If he had broken his leg kicking [Democratic Assembly Speaker] Fabian Nunez, that’d be one thing. But he fell down skiing. He was on his own time.”

Veteran GOP consultant Sal Russo, a top advisor to former Gov. George Deukmejian, disagrees with Schnur.

“This is an easy one,” he says. “Just be totally forthcoming unless you have something to hide.... Take all questions off the table. They just lead to speculation and rumors.”

As for private time, Russo says: “When you’re the governor of the state of California, there’s literally no such thing. It’s part of the burden of office. That’s just the reality.”

Schwarzenegger and his advisors shouldn’t fret over public curiosity about a broken leg. They should worry only if the public ever stops being curious. Then the governor will truly be a lame duck.

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George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.