Deflecting to Obamagate

Dr. Anthony Fauci

If president Trump wants to stake his re-election on "Obamagate," he should have a ready description of what he calls "the biggest political crime in American history."

He'll have to do much better than what he said on May 11.

"Obamagate. It’s been going on for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected, and it’s a disgrace that it happened, and if you look at what’s gone on, and if you look at now, all this information that’s being released—and from what I understand, that’s only the beginning—some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again. And you’ll be seeing what’s going on over the next, over the coming weeks but I, and I wish you’d write honestly about it but unfortunately you choose not to do so."

Trump said the Obama's crime "is very obvious to everybody" and Fox News' Brian Kilmeade predicted the upcoming election campaign is going to be about Obama against Trump.

My hunch is that Democrats would welcome that political matchup.

It would be a battle between a guy who steered America through the financial meltdown and saved the auto industry to boot vs. a guy who twiddled his thumbs while COVID-19 spread in the US and killed more than 80K Americans so far.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has skillfully shot down the president's magical thinking that COVID-19 might just disappear.

He told the May 12 Senate hearing that COVID-19 isn't going to simply vanish because it "is such a highly transmissible virus."

In fact, Fauci worries that the premature opening up of the economy may trigger "a rebound, a second wave in the fall."

As a member of the science-denying Trump administration, Fauci hopes that if a second wave happens, "We will be able to deal with it very effectively, to prevent it from becoming an outbreak, not only worse than now but much, much less."

That's not a ringing vote of confidence.

Sen. Rand Paul, a charter member of the Republican science-denying caucus, rapped Fauci, saying he isn't the "end-all" for COVID-19 decisions. And Paul isn't exactly the "end-all" when he comes to political statesmen.

Kentucky's Senator graciously said he's willing to listen to the advice by Fauci, one of America's top experts on infectious disease, but there are other people who think the economy is ready to be reopened. That's comparing apples with oranges.

Fauci hit it out of the park, responding to Paul: "I'm a scientist, a physician and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence."

A Pew Research poll released May 7 finds a majority of Americans side with Fauci and science when it comes to reopening the economy.

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of Americans fear that states will lift COVID-19 restrictions too quickly, vs. 31 percent who say states aren't acting fast enough to restart their economies.

America should pray every night to ask God to grant Fauci the strength to ride out the Trump presidency.