No one is really sure what Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan is running for. Is his goal the Governorship of Ohio? Or does he have some plan to unseat Kevin McCarthy and become the leader of the Republicans in the House \u2013 with hopes of becoming Speaker some day? Or, is he so worried about the fallout from his actions as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State three decades ago, that he wants to be invaluable to the \u201cright\u201d. That way, no matter what he failed to do to protect his athletes back in the day, the right will still support him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Jordan has found the focal point for his right wing rage: Dr. Anthony Fauci. In a Congressional hearing yesterday, he demanded of Dr. Fauci, almost pounding his fists on the table: \u201cWhen will we get our freedom back!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He might just as well have said, \u201cwhen did you stop beating your wife,\u201d to the eminent virologist. Fauci, rightly, refused to accept the premise of Jordan\u2019s question. The restrictions of COVID control aren\u2019t about \u201cfreedom\u201d, they are about keeping more Americans from dying from the disease. What Jordan calls \u201cfreedom\u201d is really the \u201cright\u201d to hold super-spreader events, and kill people. And that\u2019s not a right, that\u2019s just stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Jordan has found his \u201cwhipping boy\u201d for all the so-called lost freedoms that COVID has caused. Fauci managed to be the \u201clast man standing\u201d from the original Trump response to the virus. Other scientists and physicians, and the list is long, were disgraced by the end of Trump\u2019s term: Birx, Redfield, and Azar among them. They lost their credibility trying to navigate science and a President who found COVID an inconvenient truth. Fauci, on the other hand, became the alternative to the Trump craziness. He spoke the truth when the Trump appointees spouted political fiction. He served an \u201cexile\u201d under Trump, banned from the national press. And he emerged as the scientific leader of America\u2019s virus response under the Biden Administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Jordan really gets \u201cthree for one\u201d by attacking Fauci. He gets to be a \u201cTrumper\u201d against the one scientist who rose above the Trump Administration. He also gets to support all those folks who believe that the COVID responses \u2013 from online school and church to cancelled Little League Baseball games, weren\u2019t necessary. And he gets to try to pass the COVID \u201cblame\u201d to President Biden and the Democrats. And Jordan loves to blame Democrats for almost every evil known to man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the facts of COVID really don\u2019t matter much to the former wrestler from St. Paris. It\u2019s so much easier to follow his Fox News friends and pretend that the almost 600,000 Americans lost in the past year weren\u2019t really there in the first place. Or that the vaccines, that many of Jordan\u2019s supporters refuse to take, will \u201csolve\u201d all the COVID problems. Or that Jordan\u2019s version of \u201cfreedom\u201d is contingent upon not wearing a face mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the same version that Senator Rand Paul tried to \u201csell\u201d in another hearing with Dr. Fauci.\u00a0\u00a0Paul ripped Fauci for wearing a face mask after being full vaccinated.\u00a0\u00a0It was straight from the Facebook \u201cmeme\u201d:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cif the vaccine works, you don\u2019t need a mask \u2013 if you need a mask then the vaccine doesn\u2019t work\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019d think that having a medical degree would allow Dr. Paul to deal with more complex thought concepts \u2013 but those don\u2019t make good \u201csound bites\u201d on Fox News. Yes, the vaccine works, better than the flu and the chicken pox shots. But it isn\u2019t perfect. And as it is so new, we don\u2019t know the impact that \u201cvariants\u201d of COVID will have (the variants driving the COVID spike in Michigan right now). So the prudent thing to do is to continue to wear a mask \u2013 both for the wearer and those around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while we don\u2019t know what office Jordan is lusting for, we do know that Rand Paul longs to fulfill his father\u2019s dream of winning the Presidency. So Fox News coverage is mandatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Jordan and Paul represent a \u201cKnow Nothing\u201d view of COVID \u2013 that somehow it was all a hoax on the American people, perhaps designed to bring Donald Trump down. That view is amplified in the \u201csilo\u201d of right wing media. It\u2019s easy for their constituents in rural fields of Ohio or the Appalachian \u201chollers\u201d of Eastern Kentucky to pretend that COVID is just a \u201cDemocrat\u201d disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s not just a Democratic disease, and Dr. Fauci continues to tell Americans the scientific truth; even when it\u2019s hard, and even when it\u2019s not what Americans \u201cwant\u201d to hear.\u00a0\u00a0The advent of the vaccines and the spring are driving the attitude that \u201cit\u2019s all over\u201d \u2013 but it\u2019s not.\u00a0\u00a0And the politically motivated protestations of Jordan and others won\u2019t make it so.\u00a0\u00a0We will \u2013 by doing what needs to be done to control COVID, and protect the American people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s what Dr. Fauci is trying to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"