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Ever since the Republican Party moved to a wholly-owned subsidiary of former President Donald Trump, it has been increasingly preoccupied with conspiracy theories and smear campaigns. For Trump himself, as well as such Trump operatives as Roger Stone, smears and conspiracy refer to politics, rather than policy or rule. Over the past few years, unfortunately, we have become accustomed to their fierce style.
The latest target of their fantasies and slander is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is among the familiar faces in America as chief presidential adviser on coronavirus. Fauci has become a man about whom wing noisemakers are free to make up evil lies.
You see, the well-known epidemiologist didn’t think Trump was doing well in America when the former president suggested that we inject bleach into ourselves, or buy hydroxychloroquine or avoid masking. Fauci also dared to note that the Trump administration’s horrific management of the pandemic led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Because it did.
Now the same extremists that some of them, like television personality Tucker Carlson, posing as journalists have been told that Fauci was actually responsible for the virus’s escape from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, where it is said to be “engineered.” This fascinating lie once gained strength when a series of Fauci’s emails were revealed by BuzzFeed and immediately distorted and humiliated to the point of damning him. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump pointed out in an article dismissing Carlson’s charge, the Fox creator didn’t even try to check if there was any factual basis for his argument.
As Bump pointed out, there is no evidence that Fauci imitated Congress about the origins of COVID-19. Nor is there a single piece of evidence that he tried to thwart research into the possibility that the virus somehow escaped from the Wuhan lab a theory that most virologists still reject, even more testing it. Requests for transparency from the Chinese government are in effect; the requests to “burn Fauci” are ridiculous.
The inevitable goal of Trump’s henchmen is to wipe away the blood of dead Americans who already have him and dispel the blame elsewhere. Republicans are now announcing a real meme about their fallen idol “Trump Lied. Man Died.” And trying to stick it to Fauci. But their noise cannot forgive Trump.
How will history receive Anthony Fauci? Unlike Trump, who was born with wealth and privilege, Fauci was a Brooklyn kid who grew up in his father’s pharmacy apartment. He has achieved his way through merit, be it as the little captain of his college basketball team or as the winner of almost every prize and reward important in his chosen field.
Fauci is a professional, not a politician. He was appointed to his current position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the Reagan administration and has served on both Republican and Democratic presidents ever since. In that position, where he has earned the trust of the world, Fauci led the nation’s defense against a series of medical challenges, including the AIDS pandemic, the threat of Ebola and a series of potential pandemics including the earlier SARS, a variant of the Middle East, and swine flu To the extent that we have escaped the worst consequences of living on a planet where the disease spreads like fire, he deserves most of the credit.
In 2008, President George W. Bush was another Republican whose rightful right was decided as the anointed leader of God who awarded the Second Medial of Freedom to Fauci. That honor is based on Fauci’s direction of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which is among the most successful government efforts in U.S. history and has probably saved at least 18 million lives. During those times, the nation’s conservative evangelicals helped persuade Bush to fund PEPFAR as an act of faith. Now, worshiping the golden calf, they humiliate the man who operated that program.
Tony Fauci is a great American with no party or ideology. He is the last to say that he has not made mistakes, because scientists make mistakes and learn from them. But if his dishonest critics live a thousand years, all of them together will not achieve a fraction of the good he has done.
We don’t need to hear more from them.
To learn more about Joe Conason and read features of other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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