Tony's Diary Package — page 1079

Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Capitol Hill on Sept. 14. (Evelyn Hockstein/ Reuters) a Why Anthony Fauci is the greatest public servant I have known By Michael Gerson Columnist I October 10, 2022 at 1:08 p.m. EDT American political disagreements have often come down to us in the form of vivid dyads. Alexander Hamilton vs. Thomas Jefferson. Stephen A. Douglas vs. Abraham Lincoln. Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Arthur H. Vandenberg. One such conflict over the past few years has been Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) vs. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime head of the department of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health. I am not referring here to any moral or intellectual equivalence between the figures. Their inequality, in fact, is a central part of the story. Paul's contempt for expertise, his spread of conspiracy theories, his use of oversight as ambush -- all this indicates a performative approach to governing. Reality does not