I think it will be useful to pull up some recent quotes from Dr. Fauci as a way to compare his relatively precise language with the foggy language currently employed in the service of propaganda.
I had Dr. Fauci pretty much characterized properly from the start. If you check out my June 27, 2020 "Task Force Review," you'll see that everything I predicted for the parties mentioned has come to pass. Here's my Fauci summary,
"Fauci has recognized the clusterfuck nature of the task force from the beginning. He carries the assurance of an old mob boss who knows he's going to outlast all the morons around him while maintaining everyone's respect."
I'm a Fauci fan in the same way that I'm a Vito Corleone fan. I may not agree with everything they do, but I must admit, they do it with style. I have my Dr. Fauci bobblehead. He's wearing a black suit and a red tie, rather than a lab coat, so that I'm reminded of his Corleone-ishness. Please don't assume my owning a Fauci bobblehead means anything in particular; I also have a fine collection of horned, hooved statuary featuring pentagrams.
Fauci Precision
Dr. Fauci is not really a propagandist. He's precise in what he says. Occasionally, he lies under the auspices of doing some greater good, but when he does, the lies are bald-faced, not some sleight-of-words.
Let me give you an example of Fauci truth-telling rather than propagandizing when presented with an option. If you'll recall, the Dean Obeidallah "Aaron Rodgers" piece that I analyzed featured Obeidallah trying to debunk Rodgers' comment that it was "not a pandemic of the nonvaccinated." Obeidallah referenced a particular study regarding rates of vaccinated infected versus unvaccinated infected in an attempt to debunk Rodgers.
Well, a transcript of an ABC 12-19-21 "The Week" interview yields interviewer Jonathan Karl asking Fauci, "Is this really becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated? I mean, is this really a crisis of the unvaccinated?"
Fauci is presented with two response options here. He can respond to the first question, "pandemic of the unvaccinated," or he can respond to the second question, "crisis of the unvaccinated." Because Fauci is precise, and because he knows that every word he says is fact checked, Fauci responds, "You know, it is certainly much more of a crisis of the unvaccinated, but there are other tools besides vaccine, and wearing a mask complements the protection you get from the vaccine, and a boost."
Fauci had the option of choosing "pandemic of the unvaccinated" or "crisis of the unvaccinated." He chose "crisis" because the phrase "pandemic of the unvaccinated" suggests that the unvaccinated are causing the pandemic in some sense, which is the narrative that Obeidallah and other writers are pushing. Fauci knows this is an overblown and somewhat incorrect spin. Fauci chose "crisis" because it suggests that unvaccinated are disproportionately victims of the pandemic, which is factually correct.
Obeidallah, in his Rodgers essay, was trying to frame the unvaccinated as superspreaders as opposed to victims. Fauci, with his careful word choice, was more precise.
Fauci Says
Here are some of the more interesting Dr. Fauci lies and admissions.
1) Gloves are more important than masks. First month of the pandemic. Fauci and the CDC pushed this, even as doctors in other countries emphasized masks as opposed to gloves. I was one of the idiots who listened to Fauci and the CDC instead of South Korean experts. If I had gotten ill and died, it would have been because Fauci and the CDC were hoarding masks for health care workers. They were preventing a general public run on masks. Their calculus did me no favors.
2) In December 2021, Fauci admitted to MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin that one of the reasons for the sudden explosion of "children with Covid" was that all children admitted to hospitals were being tested. If positive, they were listed as hospitalized "with Covid." It had taken months for Fauci to publicly admit this, and in the interim, people on social media making the same observations were banned for "spreading Covid misinformation."
3) In January 2022, Fauci publicly admitted that almost all Americans were going to get Covid due to Omicron. He obviously knew this for some time, but saying it out loud undercuts the basic "getting vaccinated so I don't get Covid" rationale. His blunt public admittance was therefore long delayed.
Conclusion
Dr. Fauci has had no issue saying one thing in public (while believing another) when he perceived a greater good to be in play. The question someone should really ask him is, "If you think more lives will be saved by publicly lying and omitting information rather than telling the truth, will you continue to lie and omit information in the service of what you see as the public good?"
Of course, the Don Corleones of the world don't answer those kinds of questions. And nobody ever asks.
Bob Dietz
February 7, 2022
