Dr. Anthony Fauci is hardly above criticism. But the appearance by the former chief medical adviser to the president of the United States turned into bizarre theater before a Senate panel last week.

Fauci refused to answer questions, invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, while Senate Republicans castigated his alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. For Fauci’s detractors, mostly on the right, this was a belated attempt to hold an arrogant bureaucrat accountable for negligence and deception; for his defenders, it was a combination of GOP grandstanding, vendetta and a pernicious attempt to discredit pandemic-era public health measures.

While Fauci worship in some liberal circles during the pandemic could certainly be obnoxious, such critiques fall away in the face of the Republican push to demonize the 85-year-old scientist.

The question of Fauci’s alleged wrongdoing often rests on interpretation. Was he being deliberately deceptive when, by his........

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