Dr. No.
For those with a cultural memory, Dr. No was the very first film in what became the long series of movies based on writer Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.
Read more Forget the Singularity: Universal AI Surveillance Is Here
In this film’s opener, Bond is sent to Jamaica, tasked with discovering what happened to a murdered fellow British agent. Eventually he discovers that there is a gentleman named Dr. No, who is, as described in the Wikipedia film bio, “a Chinese-German scientist with prosthetic metal hands” and who is a member of SPECTRE, an “organized crime enterprise.”
This Bond lore comes to mind after watching the appearance of Dr. Anthony Fauci testifying in front of the U.S. Senate Committee investigating Dr. Fauci’s conduct as the COVID epidemic took root. Dr. Fauci, as Americans and the rest of the world watched, took his right to the Fifth Amendment and not incriminate himself over 100 times. Declining over a three-hour period to answer the questions of Senators. (RELATED: Anthony Fauci’s Fifth Amendment Strategy May Not End the Investigation)
The chairman of the Senate Committee was Kentucky’s Senator Rand Paul. And Senator Paul made no bones about where he stood with Dr. Fauci. “Fauci and his team destroyed public trust in the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and our public health institutions,” Paul said in a July 28 X post. “Accountability is long overdue.” (RELATED: Agents Double-0-COVID)
Indeed it is.
USA Today wrote up its coverage as follows:
WASHINGTON – Dr. Anthony Fauci may be held in contempt of Congress after refusing to answer Republicans’ questions about the origins of COVID-19, invoking the Fifth Amendment right against incriminating himself during a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.
Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who for years pushed for answers about the origin of the coronavirus, said a Senate panel will hold a vote on whether to hold Fauci in contempt. He said Fauci should have testified because former President Joe Biden issued him a preemptive pardon.
Fauci appeared under subpoena in a hearing so tense that Paul had one of Fauci’s attorneys ejected from the room. After reading a statement saying the purpose of the hearing was to entrap him, Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to otherwise respond to a barrage of questions from Republicans.
Got that?
After reading a statement saying the purpose of the hearing was to entrap him, Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to otherwise respond to a barrage of questions from Republicans.
Read more Don’t Forget How Florida Defeated ‘Faucism’ and Vindicated Federalism
The obvious comes front and center. Dr. Fauci’s job in Washington was to be a public servant. For better or worse, for good, bad, or indifferent. His job was not to preserve his political hide because of politics. (RELATED: Tracking Dr. Fauci’s Fallout)
But that’s what he did. And in doing so, obviously inadvertently, Dr. Fauci actually went about vividly illustrating just how much of a political player he has been in his job running the CDC. He made it his job not to run the CDC but to play politics with his job running the CDC. (RELATED: Fauci Pleads the Fifth Before Congress)
And as usually happens with those who go out of their way to play politics with a government job, Dr. Fauci wound up doing himself in. Creating the now vividly eternal image of a government employee who saw his job as primarily to make decisions that protected himself from whatever decisions he was there at the CDC to make.
For those would-be government employees looking down the road to have a government job in Washington or, for that matter, in any of the hundreds of state and local governments around the country, there is a lesson here. Namely, once in the job, do the job. Do the job! Don’t play politics — do the job.
There is no question that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a smart medical doctor. But alas, he’s a seriously bad government political player.
And now, as all those 100-plus Fifth Amendment requests as a real-life Dr. No illustrate vividly, he is paying the price for it.
Read more The Cult of Andrew Tate: Modernity’s ‘Men Without Chests’
Not smart. And not good.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
Trump and Iran: Peace Through Strength
Sally Quinn and the Establishment Blues
Arrest New York Mayor Mamdani If He Arrests Netanyahu?
About the Author
