Warped Establishment Media Coverage Ignores the Real Story in Rand Paul’s Latest Showdown With Dr. Fauci
“Furious Fauci Tears Into Rand Paul for Inciting Threats on His Life.” “Fauci Fires Back at Rand Paul.” “Fauci is Showing His Teeth.”
From headlines in the Daily Beast to the Washington Post to the Independent, this is how the establishment media covered yesterday’s viral exchange between the White House's top doctor and the libertarian-leaning Republican senator. Liberal journalists missed the real story.
Fauci was certainly furious, but what was really newsworthy was Paul asking relevant questions about the doctor's authority and influence—and how he might have abused his power throughout the pandemic.
Paul accused Fauci of trying to suppress the views of scientists from esteemed universities who authored the “Great Barrington Declaration” criticizing lockdown policies. The senator cited an email chain where Fauci coordinated with other government experts to discredit the dissident scientists.
https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1481006705253175303?s=20
https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1481006713205669890
“A planner who believes he is the science leads to an arrogance that justifies in his mind using government resources to smear and to destroy the reputations of other scientists who disagree with him,” Paul said to Fauci. “Do you think it’s appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you?”
Fauci replied, “That’s not what went on. There you go again. You do the same thing every hearing.”
No, this is what Fauci does every hearing.
Fauci didn't answer Paul. In fact, he hardly ever answers Paul. But most stories on exchanges between Fauci and Paul do not focus on the fact that a government official being held accountable by a U.S. senator is never actually held accountable. Most reports just focus on the supposed audacity of Paul for challenging Fauci and Fauci getting mad about it.
So it becomes "Furious" Fauci "tearing" into Paul. That's typically the story in the mainstream press—not what Paul actually asked Fauci. Most journalists seem far less interested in that.
They want the wrestling match and to cheer for their hero.
On Tuesday, this now-expected dynamic culminated with Fauci accusing Paul of inciting violence toward him through his past critiques.
https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1480959161257148419
Based Politics' Hannah Cox pointed out the irony of Fauci's charges, "Never mind the fact that Sen. Paul has endured three actual attacks on his life in recent years (once by a neighbor, once by a gunman at a Congressional baseball game, and once by a mob outside the Capitol during Black Lives Matter protests)."
National Review's David Harsanyi noted the absurdity of Fauci's claims:
"Is Fauci really arguing that calling for his firing — from a job he’s held since 1984 — is tantamount to inciting violence? Does that go for the Democratic Party rhetoric that motivated a Bernie Sanders fan who attempted to murder, among other Republicans, Paul on a baseball field in Alexandria in 2017? Or progressive rhetoric that motivated a mob to menace Paul and his wife on D.C.’s streets in 2020?"
"Nothing in Paul’s critique of Fauci calls for any violence," Harsanyi added. "It calls for a mendacious government official to be fired because he’s been awful at his job."
But many will still not know just how awful Anthony Fauci has been at his job, because the establishment media focuses more on Rand Paul daring to question the doctor—and not the validity of his questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuscEiC_Ar8&t=3s