Dr. Anthony Fauci deserved gratitude, not Rand Paul’s Republican show trial

At today’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, which doubled as a character assassination of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, dripping with contempt, said to Dr. Fauci, “Who the f**k- do you think you are?"I have a question for Moreno, and for the committee’s chairman, Rand Paul: "Who the f*** do you think you are?"Fauci has a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He advised every president since Reagan. He spent more than 40 years of his life inside infectious disease wards while Moreno was selling used cars and Paul was an eye surgeon getting beaten up by a neighbor.Today, Dr. Fauci rightly took the Fifth because, going up against a bunch of know-it-all morons, he had nothing to gain by trying to defend himself. So, in an attempt to give him a hand, I’m happy to defend him here.Related: Dr. Fauci Calls Out Homophobic Lawmakers: 'The Antigay Attitude of People Is as Bad' As He's Ever SeenThe hearing wasn't oversight. It was a sham. It was a public execution, years in the making, staged by a spoiled, pretentious, narrow-minded jerk of a chairman who has said outright that he wants to see Fauci "behind bars."The despicable Paul subpoenaed a semi-retired 85-year-old physician and, gallingly, released more than a thousand pages of Fauci's private pandemic-era diary. No one was surprised to learn that RFK Jr.'s HHS was complicit in this obscene invasion of privacy.I have a question for you. How would you feel if someone exposed your diaries? Dr. Fauci no doubt lived in a dark world during the pandemic, so who can blame him for privately finding some silver linings?Paul and his accomplices ridiculed Fauci for taking the Fifth. Fauci said as plainly as he could in his opening statement that the only reason Paul hauled him in front of the cameras was to get him to say something, anything, that could be twisted into the prosecution Paul has been chasing publicly for years.And after all that was viciously said, nothing was done