Fauci is losing it … and the “it” is respect
Dr. Anthony Fauci entered the era of the Covid Pandemic as one of the most respected medical authorities in America. He had gained his fame (and fortune) for his handling of the HIV crisis of the 1970s. Other than that, he was an obscure bureaucrat as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.
Fauci and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have been having a political feud for a long time. It hit a low point in the recent Senate hearings when Fauci came with a prearranged ad hominin attack on Paul – complete with props. It was one of the worst and most disrespectful attacks on a Senator by a witness in recent memory. Some think it was deserved, others think it was a breach of protocol by a very arrogant government worker. To each his own on that one.
Blaming Paul, Fauci recounted the arrest of a man who claimed he was coming to Washington to kill Fauci. That is definitely scary, but public figures get these threats from all sides on a regular basis. In fact, Fauci was playing the sympathy card against a senator who has been violently attacked and injured by a Trump hater – and Paul and their family were assaulted on a number of other occasions. Paul did not blame Fauci for those.
However, the pissing contest between Fauci and Paul is more of a distraction than an enlightenment. Fauci’s fall from the pedestal of universal public acclaim has more to do with his handling of the Covid crisis than the criticism of a single senator.
Fauci has blundered more than once. He has been seen to cover up past mistakes – hoping the public memory is short. One of his first pronouncements on Covid-19 was to assure the nation that the virus would not have a significant impact on the United States. As a chief medical advisor to Trump at the time, Fauci shares some blame for Trump’s initial optimistic statements. While the biased media regurgitates Trump’s mistaken statements, they never re-run the Fauci tapes.
In terms of masking, Fauci has been all over the map. I recall – and wrote up a commentary – about a television interview in which Fauci was asked if he would wear a mask. He acted indignant when he said, “Why would I wear a mask if I do not have any symptoms?”
In a later iteration, Fauci said that masks are ineffective in protecting a person from contracting the virus. Their only utility is to prevent an infected person from spreading the virus. CNN fact-checkers confirmed that Fauci did advise against wearing masks, but said it was only because of the shortage of masks. That was NOT Fauci’s explanation in the cited interview. CNN’s excuse was not consistent with a February 2020 email from Fauci saying that masks “were not really effective in keeping out the virus.” On July 1, 2020, National Public Radio reported on Fauci’s “mixed messaging on masks.”
At various times, Fauci advised people to wear masks when leaving the house and that it was safe to go without masks in the outdoors. He later recommended universal masking. Fauci has also vacillated on the issue of in-classroom learning.
Fauci has yet to explain his misrepresentation to Congress in which he said that his agency never funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan clinic where some believe Covid-19 originated. His parent organization, the NIH later admitted that such funding was provided. In fact, Fauci once discounted the possibility of the virus escaping from the clinic – later admitting that is it possible.
While Fauci is considered the go-to guy in all matters relating to Covid, he is often at odds with other national authorities. He is never asked to explain these inconsistencies. Consequently, he contributes to the growing confusion and frustration.
There have been unsubstantiated rumors – and I stress “unsubstantiated” – that Fauci and his wife have investments that profit from his medical opinions and actions. They are unsubstantiated because Fauci has not been transparent about his investments. When the subject was broached by Kansas Senator Roger Marshall in a recent hearing, Fauci said that his financial records are public for anyone to see – and called the Senator a “moron.”
Again, it appears that Fauci misrepresented (lied?) in his testimony. Several news organizations were unable to find the financial statements – in one case where some financial records were obtained, they were so highly redacted that the information was useless.
OpenTheBook.com – an organization that tracks public spending has been trying to obtain Fauci’s financial records. They are not readily available as Fauci claims and OpenTheBook stated that “we’ve sued Dr. Fauci and his agency for his contract (amendments, changes, modifications), conflict and financial disclosures, job description, and royalty payments.”
There have been questions – and criticisms – as to why Fauci should be the highest-paid person in the federal government – with a taxpayer-paid salary of more than $400,000. What many may not know is that his wife works for NIH – essentially doubling the Fauci household income.
There have been calls for Fauci’s resignation. They have fallen short for several reasons. Usually, they are associated with only one of Fauci’s controversial issues – a story with a shelf-life of a day or two. No one has effectively done a comprehensive job review on Fauci. In addition, Fauci is on the political team that receives cover from the news media.
If there was an honest deep dive into Fauci’s financial records — and a legitimate comprehensive job review — Fauci may or may or may not get fired – although a case can be made. If not terminated, he would certainly be taken down from the ivory tower upon which the Democrats and the media place him.
As just one citizen, my initially high admiration for Fauci has slowly eroded over time as more and more facts came to light – as more and more flip-flops occur. I have seen behind that kindly grandpa façade to find an arrogant establishmentarian bureaucrat. If it was within my power, I would fire Fauci for a number of reasons.
So, there ‘tis.
Larry, IMO, you blame Fauci for giving us his best recommendations at the time, based on the best data at the time, usually with caveats which you conveniently drop from your context. He then changes said recommendations as new data appears and you fault him for changing. You blame Fauci when Trump does not agree with him. You boil a nuanced Fauci discussion into simple black and white sound bite bullet points and then declare him untrustworthy for changing his mind based on new evidence.
Let’s just try a few of your points. You said: “He has been seen to cover up past mistakes – hoping the public memory is short. One of his first pronouncements on Covid-19 was to assure the nation that the virus would not have a significant impact on the United States. As a chief medical advisor to Trump at the time, Fauci shares some blame for Trump’s initial optimistic statements. While the biased media regurgitates Trump’s mistaken statements, they never re-run the Fauci tapes.” Wow, that’s damning.
Let’s rerun what he actually said. From USA Today’s 2/17/2020 interview with Fauci, entitled “Top disease official: Risk of coronavirus in USA is ‘minuscule’; skip mask and wash hands: “ Uh oh, sounds like mission accomplished, all clear. Thanks Dr. F. That appears to be what Larry took away. Let’s look at the actual article below the bombastic headline. At the start of the interview, talking specifically about CDC testing in five cities, Fauci says: “If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don’t know about, “we’ve got a problem,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY’s Editorial Board Monday.” (Note the Fauci metric definition for a covid problem determination, right…and the FACT that Fauci says we could have a problem. Back to the interview) “Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don’t worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don’t avoid Chinese people or restaurants. “Whenever you have the threat of a transmissible infection, there are varying degrees from understandable to outlandish extrapolations of fear,” Fauci said.”
I won’t call Larry totally busted on this because of the mask comments that are true but changed over time. But Larry, and others, have difficulties with the full comprehension of what Fauci said. Fauci, in the beginning, caveated his “all clear” message with metrics that would indicate if and when we have a problem. If you look out of context, anything is possible. Meanwhile, the virus mutates, our knowledge should mutate too (mostly in a good way). And better if there are metrics, like Fauci had, to guide us in those changes.
Another point: in this early interview you see the masking requirement is only if contagious. It is still seen as more important to mask when sick to prevent spread than it is to mask to prevent catching it. Over time the medical community concluded masking to prevent catching it is just a simpler message for an already confused society. When to mask and what mask to use evolved to this. Recently heard a leading Doctor say the same thing; he just caveated that with delta and omicron might as well swing both way. I agree that the messaging, especially with the changes, is confusing to the public. But making Fauci the fall guy for all of that? That’s just convenient.
Larry also lays blame on Fauci for some of Trump’s “it will be OK” messages. IMO, how does Fauci bear any blame for Trump’s misstatements at the time like: February 7 and 19 when he said: “when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.” Fauci to blame? When did Fauci say that?
2/27: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” Fauci blame? Fauci really? Cautious and caveated Fauci?
2/26 and more: “If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide “definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about” for COVID-19 deaths.” Fauci to blame for this bald-faced lie? Even if we counted the ten’s of thousands of suicide-by-gun deaths, this would never have been in the ballpark. Fauci never said it would.
These are just a few of the Trump lies at the time of Fauci’s carefully constructed statement that Larry and others abridge to support claims that Fauci lies. Most of what Larry says about Fauci is like this. Out of context, abbreviated, abridged, to make fodder for their spin.
Larry, I’m not happy with any of the messaging from the time of Trump through Biden’s first year. Masking, distancing, viability of covid germs on surfaces, ordering fast food, —— for a country with unlimited resources and the brightest brains on the planet, we still don’t know some pretty basic shit about covid. Just recently, with omicron “they” said “much more transmittable, but cleaning surfaces is your last priority given most people catch it in the air.” OK….the cleaning surfaces requirements is based on a laboratory test done before covid. It was never updated by Trump or Biden. It was laboratory, not real world. Here in our great nation, with the best and the brightest, lots of money, sick people everywhere, and we couldn’t update the hard surfaces test with a real-world test? And then we conclude that the increased transmutability of omicron due to heavier loads in the upper respiratory path have ZERO EFFECT on surfaces that we really have never tested for alpha, beta, delta, or omicron? But yet, hand washing is uber important still? Why, if you can’t catch it from surfaces?
Somehow that leap-of-faith makes sense? No, Larry, I am not happy with the messaging. I went on the CDC site for this post, looking at masking, and I was appalled that the site has not been updated for omicron.
What we do know from communications: CDC, Biden Admin, media, is muddled, full of fud, and, of course, the Conservative misinformation machine is running full steam with it’s conspiracies for cash machine creating communications havoc. There have been missteps and confusion throughout and there still is. But Fauci is not the spearhead of this disinformation, IMO, he has removed more fud than most, removed more fud than he added. Trump, on the other hand, has added more fud than he has removed. Fox more than it removed. The Epoch Times, NewMax, they just misinform, regularly.
Tis my take, Larry. The most important takeaway is usually you will find a Fauci caveat to almost any slime you are thinking of throwing his way. He is a pretty careful man, even when spinning a bit.
Shut up and vote Republican you idiot
no you