Eric the Blue

My theory concerning the vilification of Anthony Fauci is that the Coronavirus killed more than a million Americans, Trump was president, his performance as it related to the outbreak was dismal, and someone else had to take the fall–Fauci, it seems.

I think my theory explains some things that otherwise don’t make a lot of sense. For example, most recently, all the to-do about Fauci’s diary, as if the mere fact of its existence confirmed his perfidy, even though as far as I can tell the gravest sin it reveals is that he was perhaps over bemused by the celebrity status he attained before segueing into the Great Satan.

Also: why is the debate about the outbreak’s creation story so fraught? Is the idea that something going awry in the Chinese lab would show that they were brewing it up for us, and that Fauci was in on it? As theories go, it’s somewhat more likely that Obama’s birth certificate showing he came into the world at Honolulu was a fake.

I believe that Fauci was an advisor, and had no power to enact or implement policy. Trump didn’t have to listen to him, or even employ him. He’s famous for firing people, right? Fauci’s villainy was discovered in the rear view mirror, and only when a culprit was needed to divert blame away from Great Leader.

Republicans have way too many stories about Covid. That it wasn’t that big a deal, just another flu, and that Fauci is responsible for the 7-figure body count– a logician would say they can’t both be true. (Actually, neither is.)

Fauci is taking fire for taking the Fifth. I’d like to hear what he has to say about Covid–what we now know and should have learned–but I think that puts me in the minority. The people sneering at him have no interest in the pandemic, science, public health, lessons learned, preparing for the next one, anything like that. They only want to make trouble for Fauci. Maybe he’d say something that would give them an opening. So, on the advice of counsel . . . .

In the days of my youth a stand-up comedian could make people laugh just by saying “fuck” on stage. As a comic, you nowadays have to be a lot more “edgy” than that, but in congressional hearings it seems a performative way of signalling your regular-guy cred. Thus Senator Moreno, Republican from Ohio, can on national TV ask Anthony Fauci who the fuck he thinks he is while exercising comparative linguistic restraint when addressing his former son-in-law, a congressman, also from Ohio, who’s made a habit of assaulting the women in his life, most recently the senator’s own daughter (and probably his granddaughter, too). I nominate both Moreno and his former son-in-law, Max Miller, for the Hall of Shame. Fauci is more deserving of this: