Thanks Again Dr Fauci!

Dr Anthony Fauci, beside Trump (the best of us, beside the worst), via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump’s first presidency was a global embarrassment, starting with the so-called ‘Muslim ban’, and ending with the January 6^th insurrection.

And then, in 2020, came COVID-19. This was a major global event, and there was no perfect course of action. There were a lot of bad ones, though, and Trump selected many of them. Selecting Alex Azar for Health and Human Services was not necessarily one of them (though I think it was), but ignoring and downplaying his warnings about COVID-19 certainly was, as was the reorganization (gutting?) of the pandemic preparedness system implemented by President Obama, even though he didn’t exactly fire everyone when he disbanded it. For reference, the Pandemic Playbook produced for President Obama was apparently ignored by Trump.

If the goal was to find a yes-man who would agree with everything Trump wanted, selecting Dr Anthony Fauci for the White House Coronavirus Task Force was a bad decision, but if the goal was to select someone who was an expert in the field and would make the best decisions and recommendations he was able to make, it was an excellent decision. But then, of course, Trump and his lackeys would ignore, or contradict, or attack Dr Fauci, and eventually push him out.

Still, he is probably responsible for a lot of people making better decisions, and I believe that a lot more people would have died without Dr Fauci being part of the initial response. Of course, vast numbers of people died who should not have, but that was because of the incompetence of Trump and his lackeys, the dysfunction of Congress, anti-vaxxers, RFK Jr, and other factors outside Dr Fauci’s control.

So, Trump botched pretty much everything he touched, lied, cheated, and had what I believe can confidently be described as the worst US presidency ever...

Until 2025, that is.

This time, the guardrails are off, and there appears to be no limit to the corruption, incompetence, and cruelty. But one thing Trump and the Republicans - particularly Rand Paul - do consistently is search for scapegoats, which is why they decided to call Dr Fauci to ‘testify’ in Congress, and the fact that this was entirely dishonest and focused on political grandstanding is why Dr Fauci refused to answer the ‘questions’ posed.

Their goal was to find some inconsistency, real or imagined, then invent a perjury charge out of it.

Well, not their entire goal, actually.

Ultimately, I think that the attacks on Dr Fauci, and the Iran war, and most of the other things Trump does is about the Epstein files.

I’ve thanked Dr Fauci for his work before, and mentioned the Epstein files, but I think their broad release is the thing Trump fears most. I’m reasonably confident in my assessment of Trump as incompetent, and corrupt, and twice-impeached, and a felon, and a sexual predator, so the real question is: If everyone already knows this, how much worse must there be in the Epstein files that he would apparently do just about anything to keep them quiet?

The only way to know is to “RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!”

Actually, though, I wanted to touch on something other than the incompetence of the Trump admin, the farce of dragging Dr Fauci into Congress for a witch-hunt, and the fact that the most likely reason for all of this insanity is an attempt to distract from the Epstein files.

I wanted to touch on a serious criticism of Dr Fauci, and it’s something he – shockingly - openly admits.

For background, I point to Alan Alda’s podcast Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in communication. In particular, Mr Alda had a conversation with Dr Fauci. (As I understand it, Mr Alda prefers the term ‘conversation’ to ‘interview’, as he believes that interviews with prepared questions do not result in the type of true connection and communication he is interested in.)

In this episode, Dr Fauci discusses his time at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and some of the members of his ‘class’ of 1968 at NIH. These include geneticist Dr Michael Brown and biochemist Dr Joseph Goldstein, along with Dr Harold Varmus and Dr Robert Lefkowitz, both of whom he describes as close friends.

One notable thing about these four men is that they are all Nobel laureates.

And Fauci is not. And he freely admits this deficiency, at timestamp 18:55:

“So there’s... Mike Brown, Joe Goldstein, Harold Varmus, and Bob Lefkowitz, and Tony Fauci.

The only dummy who didn’t win a Nobel Prize was me.”

Clear and Vivid, Anthony Fauci - The Soldiers of Science who saved our lives, 18:55

Such an underachiever. I mean... as of this writing, his Wikipedia article only lists forty-two awards, and only includes twelve honorary doctorates. And he’s only credited with saving millions of lives through his work.

I know it’s wishful thinking, and Dr Fauci has certainly served his nation (and humanity) more than most, but I’d really like him to be involved in building a global system for managing infectious disease. All I hear, though, is Trump, RFK Jr, and others pushing bullshit at every opportunity, and making decisions and taking actions which I believe have and will lead (directly and indirectly) to millions of deaths, globally. AIDS, measles, COVID (which is not gone), and – sigh – a near-inevitable future flu pandemic.

Instead of the bullshit we are seeing, Dr Fauci deserves nothing but our respect and our thanks.

Thank you again, Dr Fauci!

Cheers!