Dear Amnesty,

We know you're busy, so we'll just cut to the chase. We have no real way of knowing for certain, but Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's recent unresponsive behavior -- in the middle of his first gubernatorial primary -- has us extremely concerned. We can't confirm it because he hasn't exactly been available for comment, but We The Concerned have reason to believe that he may be a political prisoner.

Over the last few months, he has hardly said anything to the press in person -- just short public statements and media releases, scattered sentences really, and nothing but pre-screened, non-media questions at gatherings the press does manage to gain access to.

Securing a meeting with the governor has become nearly impossible -- not via phone, not in person. If you ask his campaign office a question, they refer you to the governor's office -- ask the governor's office and they refer you to the campaign. His press representative often claims he's "at an event" or "traveling back to Juneau." We The Concerned know he's busy, but sheesh, where's he going that doesn't have a phone?

Even on important issues for all Alaska, Parnell has been basically silent. The oddest instance to us in recent weeks was when Larry Persily, the federal coordinator for Alaska natural gas transportation projects, gave a far more substantive explanation than the governor did about why the results of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act's sponsored pipeline open season were being kept confidential. Likewise, Attorney General Dan Sullivan (and one of the new hires himself) gave most of the public response to the blazing controversy over the Parnell administration's questionably legal hiring of former lawmakers Gene Therriault and Nancy Dahlstrom.

If Sarah Palin were still governor, Dahlstrom and Therriault's hiring documents probably never would have seen the light of day. And an avalanche of Tweets, notes, releases, official appearances, impromptu radio-show call-ins -- and maybe even people wearing purple ape costumes and sandwich boards -- would have trumpeted AGIA's first open season, no matter how it turned out. True, there might not be any more details released in that case either, but at least there'd be lots of talk about the whole thing. And talk -- even if it's not that telling -- always comforts The Concerned.

Right now we're decidedly not comforted. We're very worried that voters in Alaska's Republican primary haven't heard much from Gov. Parnell lately but are getting ready to make him their candidate for governor anyway. But more importantly, this situation has been going on so long that we've begun fearing for the governor's safety. In a few weeks, we'll start to worry about Stockholm syndrome -- hopefully the governor still identifies with Alaskans, not his captors.

At the beginning of this week, we read that Gov. Parnell offered to appear in ads for Republican primary candidate for lieutenant governor Mead Treadwell's campaign. We were hoping it would provide proof of life and set our minds at ease. But, much like a video sent from a cave in Tora Bora, there was no proof that it wasn't taped years ago. There wasn't a newspaper or television dateline anywhere in it -- not even a Snap-On tool calendar.