Does Anthony Fauci see the handwriting on the wall?

His boss and enabler, the immensely hypocritical Francis Collins, apparently can take a hint.  He's getting out while he can.  He'll ride off into the sunset with a hefty government pension and the adoration of his sycophants.

But Fauci? 

He must see the storm clouds gathering.  No one, not even a true dictator, can stand in front of the cameras as many times as Fauci has, can pontificate to and manipulate a nation the way Fauci has, and get away with it indefinitely.  Remember the Ceaușescus, Tony?  Remember Colonel Gaddafi?  Sure, they held on a lot longer than two years, but then, they had secret police.

Fauci has been caught repeatedly lying about his role in the coronavirus research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  Despite Fauci's misdirection and obfuscation from the very start, by now everyone with a lick of sense, from Rand Paul to Jon Stewart, knows that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in that Fauci-funded communist Chinese lab, supported with our tax dollars.  Only the willfully ignorant and terminally demented (Let's go, Brandon!) still believe otherwise.

The evidence is overwhelming that Fauci, the NIAID (his agency), and his cronies at the EcoHealth Alliance funded gain of function research at Wuhan, failed to follow protocols, and have lied about doing so.  Fauci still denies, denies, denies, but his last remaining excuse — essentially, that the experiments he funded, strictly speaking, weren't exactly, not quite gain of function — grows more tiresome and implausible every day.

Add to this the multiple acts of unimaginable animal cruelty repeatedly perpetrated by Fauci's NIAID.  The "experiments" he ran in the Tunisian desert weren't science; they were sadism.  Starving sandflies to eat the faces off of beagles?  Really, Tony?  That's your idea of science?  In his treatment of man's best friend, Fauci makes Michael Vick look like Doctor Doolittle.  And remember: Vick did hard time.

Pro-tip, Tony: If you value your public image, don't torture Snoopy.

A vital and often ignored point about BeagleGate is that, when viewed alongside Fauci's Wuhan shenanigans, it reveals his modus operandi.  Want to perform some nefarious experiment that would never pass institutional review in the United States?  Easy!  Farm it out to foreign countries where research ethics are lax or nonexistent, and pay for it with U.S. tax dollars.  It's the evil scientist's equivalent of the old hobo's meme — this scientific drifter moves wherever the ethical climate suits his clothes.

Worse than BeagleGate, though less well known to the public — so far — is Fauci's role in the AIDS drug trials at the Incarnation Children's Center in New York City in the early 1990s.  The U.S. government later admitted that those trials, conducted under Fauci, done on so-called "AIDS orphans," violated federal rules to protect vulnerable research subjects.  They also resulted in the deaths of dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of impoverished, orphaned minority children.

How did Fauci, America's hero two years ago, get to this point?  Let's review.

First, his constant camera-seeking presence; his imperious, overbearing personality; his idiotic flip-flopping; and his never-ending falsehoods eventually wore thin.  When you're a complete phony, overexposure is the kiss of death.

Second, increased scrutiny into his actions and statements surrounding COVID-19 has unearthed disturbing facts that involve him with the origins of the virus.

Third, his duplicity surrounding COVID-19, once unearthed, prompted further investigation into his past, and now the skeletons — and Anthony Fauci has a lot of skeletons — are tumbling out of his closet.

This type of narrative never ends well.  Witness Andrew Cuomo.

Fauci isn't a young guy. He'll be 81 by Christmas.  He's famously the highest-paid federal employee there is.  Just imagine his pension.  Combine that with everything he's managed to extract from the Medical-Industrial Complex all these years, and surely the guy is financially secure.  He's received more awards than anyone could actually deserve, from the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana.  Hell, in 2020, he was named the U.S. government's Federal Employee of the Year (which, quite frankly, he ought to be, given his salary).  Why should he stick around?

He can walk away now, and not face a Cuomo-esque ending.  Why doesn't he?

Does Fauci think he's riding a tiger, and he's afraid to get off?  Well, he isn't, not quite yet.  Even Cuomo — who, let's remember, did resign voluntarily, no matter how much pressure he was under — will ultimately skate.  He'll cop a plea on the sexual misconduct charges, and off he'll go with a misdemeanor at worst.

If Fauci leaves now, he's probably in the clear. But the longer he stays on, each additional time he lies to Congress, each time he promotes yet another abusive policy, the more the hot coals accumulate over his head, and the more he pushes his luck.  Someday soon, the charges are coming.

Regardless of the tradition, human wisdom proclaims the same warning to men like Fauci: hubris begets nemesis, karma's a you-know-what, and pride goeth before destruction.  Always has been that way, always will.  And the end result — be it Julius Caesar or Richard Nixon — is not pretty.  Not for nothing, it's called the bitter end.

If Anthony Fauci had any sense, he'd resign, retire, and repent, while time and fate still allow.  If not, well, he has sown the wind.  Let him reap the whirlwind.

Image: National Archives, no known restrictions

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.