Maybe it was inevitable that Dr. Anthony Fauci would face some tough questions when he stepped before a House committee this week trying to assess the COVID-19 crisis that killed more than a million Americans. But what emerged in an especially telling moment on Capitol Hill was not so much a measured inquiry with insightful answers but a verbal beat-down that seemed better suited to the “mean girls” table at a middle school cafeteria.

Perhaps even worse, no one was really shocked by what happened.

Anyone who maintains even a passing interest in politics now knows that the prospect of finding a reasoned, respectful debate over policy is akin to bringing back the now-extinct Bachman’s warbler bird in Florida and the flat pig-toe mussel in Alabama. From professional sports and college lectures to the halls of Congress, with a trillion or so social media posts in between, America has lost its ability to talk respectfully to itself.

Fauci, the 83-year-old retired immunologist who helped guide federal anti-COVID policy for the Trump and Biden administrations, was called before a House Select sub-committee probing the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and what lessons might be learned for the future.

He was asked the understandable and expected questions about mask wearing and school lockdowns. All serious issues. All still in need of examination as America tries to prepare for what scientists predict will be another viral pandemic of some sort in the coming years.

Then came the “questions” from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican known more for angry spats than actual policy.

Greene blamed Fauci for such “invasive” policies as the mask regulations and school closings. No surprise there. Greene is a leading voice among those in America who believe it was wrong to accept such standard, anti-viral medical precautions as wearing protective masks and imposing quarantines. But for this hearing, Greene took her rhetorical attacks to new level. She refused to refer to Fauci by his professional title of “doctor.”

“Do you think that’s appropriate? Do the American........

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