> smoking is not an appropriate analogy at least insofar

Missing the forest for the trees.

The point isn’t that neglecting to mask is exactly the same as smoking. Obviously these are different. The point is that in both cases the person in question is advising one thing and doing another. The fact that a doctor smokes or doesn’t mask up in a pandemic does not mean that their advice to not smoke or to wear a mask is not good advice.

If a person regularly snacks on lead paint but tells you not to eat paint, the advice is still good even if it’s coming from an idiot.

> it is not ad-hominem to try to understand a person's motivations

Sure, but claims of hypocrisy are still not a rebuttal.

No doubt it was hypocritical for Dr Mike to tell others to social distance and then hop on a boat with a dozen people unmasked, just as it was hypocritical for Gavin Newsom to attend a dinner at The French Laundry while telling others to stay home.

This isn’t actually relevant to whether the advice to socially distance was sound, though.