The Rise and Fall of Anthony Fauci
Being pathetic is no protection against being malevolent.
By Roger Kimball
I am thinking of sending Anthony Fauci a copy of Herodotus’ Histories. After his humiliating performance before the Senate last week, Dr. Fauci might find the story of Solon’s visit to the Lydian king Croesus instructive. Croesus displays his great wealth to the Athenian lawgiver and asks, “Who is the happiest man you have ever seen?” Croesus expects Solon to name him. Instead, Solon says that no one can be judged truly happy while still living because fate can reverse one’s fortune in an instant.
It was not so long ago that Anthony Fauci was adulated worldwide as a wise and caring paragon, a Hippocrates for our age. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly 40 years (1984–2022), Fauci was the highest-paid government employee, earning more than the president. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2019–2020, Fauci was the veritable face of science. He told us so himself. He appeared countless times on the podium next to President Trump as the hysteria over the disease mounted. No matter that his advice was contradictory, he somehow emerged as the consoling incarnation of paternalistic nannydom, the perfect foil for the deployment of coercive state power. Remember the nauseating signs proclaiming “In this house we follow the science,” etc., etc.? The “science” in question was defined and transmitted by the Wizard of Oz, Anthony Fauci.
The actress Julia Roberts swooned and tittered over “maybe the coolest man on the planet” as if she were a schoolgirl encountering her first heartthrob. He presided over a conference on COVID at the Vatican in 2021. Perhaps the best summary of Fauci’s celebrity is contained in the second humiliation he experienced last week, the release of his diaries and emails by Sen. Rand Paul. There are essentially two themes to those documents. One is a breathless, not to say narcissistic, account of how popular he is. The other is a darker chronicle of his leaning on colleagues to nominate him for cash prizes (one for $900,000) and various accolades, as well as his furtive efforts to manipulate the story of COVID’s origins and lethality. It is both cringeworthy and infuriating.
This summary is correct:
Social distancing was a hoax
Masks were a joke
Lockdowns were worthless
mRNA jabs were dangerous
Case fatality rate was low
Ivermectin worked
Hydroxychloroquine also worked
Remdesivir was a killer
COVID came from the Wuhan lab
Fauci funded it
more
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-anthony-fauci/
