Statewide mask mandates. They are still a fact of life in some places, but are increasingly rolling off the books – even in blue states — because just about everyone is ready to get back to something like normal life.

No one is more eager to do so than those pols (usually on the left) who embraced restrictions, lockdowns, and masks, with a near-religious zeal…but can’t seem to follow their own rules.

Consider the photos of prominent California politicians standing arm-in-arm with Magic Johnson at the NFC championship game in Los Angeles. Masks are required at such indoor gatherings. But L.A. Mayor Garcetti was maskless. But Hizzoner had an excuse, of sorts:

Garcetti said he held his breath to take the photo.

“I’ll take personal responsibility,” said Garcetti in answer to a reporter’s question about the photos, “and if it makes you and everyone else happy — or even the photographs with people where literally I’m holding my breath for two seconds — I won’t even do that.”

Sure, sure.  Gov. Gavin Newsom got in on the mask-free photo op, too:

He indicated he only doffed his mask for the snapshot.

“You’re correct,” he said when asked about going maskless at SoFi. “I was very judicious yesterday. Very judicious. You’ll see the photo that I did take, Magic was kind enough, generous enough, to ask me for a photograph and in my left hand’s the mask and I took the photo. The rest of the time I wore it as we all should, um — not when I had a glass of water — and I encourage everybody else to do so. And, uh, that’s it.”

Right. But the winner of the mask hypocrisy sweepstakes has to be Georgia pol Stacey Abrams, who used a room fullof masked school children as props while she gets to flash a big, mask-free smile for the camera:

The tweet from Stacey Abrams seemed innocuous enough, promoting her appearance at a Decatur school honoring Black History Month.

But the pictures under the now-deleted post are what triggered a Republican backlash that could factor into the November race for governor.

Of course it got political – she’s a gubernatorial candidate. But the Abrams campaign retort to the GOP squawking utterly missed the point:

“This pathetic, transparent and silly attack is beneath anyone who claims he wants to lead Georgia,” said campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo.

The only thing that’s truly transparent how the rules don’t apply to certain pols when they are inconvenient. Like when those rules get in the way of a good photo op.