Have you ever wanted to be a Kardashian?
Dr. Anthony Fauci has.
At least, that’s the case according to Meghan McCain.
On Thursday’s installment of The View, the daughter of late Sen. John called out America’s favorite immunologist for loving the white-hot lights of fame.
As you’re aware, the doctor’s emails were recently released.
And reviews aren’t solely glowing.
Joy Behar opened the segment thusly:
“Republicans say they found their smoking gun, that he misled the public and downplayed theories that COVID spread from a leak in a Wuhan lab.”
But Trump:
“Why isn’t the GOP upset about Trump’s mishandling of the crisis?”
Co-host Ana Navarro asserted it’s all a ruse:
“Republicans have chose Fauci to be the target of their ire and to be a distraction.”
She appreciates Joe Biden:
“I do think…it’s really important to find out, at this point, to find out how this virus started. I’m very glad that Joe Biden has asked his intelligence agencies to redouble their efforts to find out what the source of the COVID-19 virus was and to report back to him in 90 days.”
As for Fauci, you’ve gotta give the guy a break…
“[W]e have to put things in context,” Navarro explained. “Understand, he was in the midst of dealing with the virus. … Let’s also remember that Fauci is a guy — he’s 80 years old — he’s been serving in this role for 40 years. … I don’t think he’s infallible, I don’t think he’s perfect, but I’m very grateful for his service to this nation of almost 40 years.”
Co-host Sara Haines relayed she’s read the emails. And not only did she find nothing damning, he seems like a swell fella:
“He was very consistent in his emails with the timing of the emails and what he was saying publicly. … He was very deliberate, very kind. … He had such integrity. I’m a fan.”
Sara was swept away by his stone-cold virtue:
“[I]t showed us that he wasn’t comfortable with the celebrity part of it — how people were trying to make it ‘Fauci Fever’ and politicizing him. He also didn’t like that. And that was very clear in all these emails.”
Still, at one point, Joy noted, “Republicans like Rand Paul are saying ‘I told you so’ over the emails.”
They sure are. Last week, RedState’s Bonchie covered it:
Is there a more vindicated man on the planet right now than Rand Paul, at least politically speaking? The Kentucky senator has been maligned by the media, used as a foil to Dr. Anthony Fauci, for months now. Every time Paul would pin down Fauci during a Senate hearing, the press would run to report it as “Fauci smashes Paul” despite that never objectively happening.
Recently, Fauci has admitted that he lied to Rand Paul about (the need for) masks and gain-of-function funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Now, bombshell emails further show Paul was right all along.
Unlike Sara, Bonchie figures Fauci likes the limelight.
“[T]he emails expose Fauci for exactly what he is. Namely, he’s a dishonest hack of a bureaucrat who pushed for the destruction of businesses and countless lives to enrich himself with book deals and media profiles.”
On The View, the ladies finally got around to Meghan. She similarly suspects Fauci purred to the popularity perks.
Whereas Sara thinks he’s swell, McMain might lean toward swollen — that’d be, his ego:
“I don’t think people that are uncomfortable with celebrity and don’t want to be celebrities pose on the cover of InStyle magazine and fashion spreads and on the cover of People magazine.”
The guy’s certainly soaked up the sun:
There was this (enhanced by my colleague, Kira Davis):
And let’s not forget…
Meghan landed upon quite the cutting comparison:
“I’m sorry, but if he just wanted to be a scientist, part of the criticism of him, going forward, was that he clearly wanted to be a Kardashian as well.”
Those were the big guns.
So what’s the show’s lone conservative think of the emails?
She’s not impressed.
“When this originally started,” she reminded the ladies, “people like Tom Cotton were writing op-eds and going on TV just raising questions.”
And as it turns out, those with questions weren’t kooks:
“[I]f you raised the question that, ‘Hey, this might’ve come from the Chinese labs in Wuhan instead of from a wet market, you were treated like Alex Jones with a tin foil hat on your head. And now, you have Vanity Fair…writing huge profiles raising these questions.”
The way Meghan sees it, the government’s damaged its credibility — on both sides of the aisle:
“There’s a huge crisis in this country with Republicans and Democrats questioning the legitimacy of our institutions and having a lack of faith in our government in the medical community at NIH and places like this because there just isn’t a lot of transparency. If there’s nothing to hide, then show us the proof and continue the investigations. And I think that should be an even bigger concern going forward.”
Meghan has great points.
The COVID saga’s definitely exposed the politics of…everything.
And once you show your hand…once the public sees — or even suspects — that decisions outside the realm of politics are made internally because of them, no one can trust anything.
That’s just one more kind of damage done to a country clobbered by riots, medical crises, forced bankruptcy, and fires.
And in the eyes of a flaming blonde on ABC, it’s all occurred as America’s doctor jonesed for the glitz and glamour of reality TV.
Hopefully, he won’t show up to receive his next award dressed like this: