Meeting your heroes can be demoralizing. Reading more than 1,000 pages of their personal diary can be worse. Or, alternatively, totally riveting, at least in that rubbernecking-at-a-car-crash kind of way—the car crash, in this case, being one of most storied careers in the history of American science.
That’s been my takeaway after cringing my way through the pandemic-era musings of Dr. Anthony Fauci, which the former chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases inexplicably saved on a government server.
Predictably, Fauci’s diaries made their way into the hands of one of mainstream science’s most notorious mean girls: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Also predictably, hundreds of pages of Fauci’s entries came to light—or were leaked to light—just in time to embarrass the embattled doctor before his appearance on Wednesday in front of Paul’s Senate committee that’s investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. In response to taunts and baiting questions from Senate Republicans, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
If only he’d shown the same discretion with his diary.
A generous reading of the compilation is that Fauci, long seen as a paragon of selfless, nonpartisan government service, was attempting to catalog the mounting disbelief he felt during a surreal period in the nation’s history—and certainly in his own history. “Brewery in Georgia named a beer after me,” he wrote in one entry from April 2020. “Bobbleheads of me being made in massive quantities in China.” He refers to “stories of granmothers who have crushes” on him (the misspelling is Fauci’s) and to petitions to vote him “Sexiest Man Alive.”
[Read: The unmaking of Anthony Fauci]
But whatever Fauci’s intentions might have been, the document has become an instant classic in the genre of bubble-world anthropology that confirms everyone’s worst suspicions about Washington being a cesspool of pampered, preening, and panting self-regard. More than a decade ago, I wrote a book that tried to explain to readers, essentially, what Beltway people are really like when the cameras aren’t rolling and the talking points are tossed aside. If I were working on that book now, Fauci’s diary would be a godsend.
His saucer-eyed romp behind the curtain renders a not-especially flattering impression of the people allegedly in charge of our country during a precarious time. Foremost, this includes the diarist himself, as Fauci becomes more and more high on his own supply of Washington adulation, at a time when COVID death rates were soaring across the country.
Here are extracts from a few of Fauci’s entries—typos and all—that I cut and pasted for posterity, in no particular order.
July 29, 2021
Went to a book signing party add the home of Adrienne Arsh. The book is “I alone can fix it “ bye Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig. The Super a list from Washington DC was there. It was a little bit uncomfortable since I was wearing a mask with the new guidance from the CDC and almost everyone else was without a mask. When they saw me with a mask , several of them put a mask on.
October 17, 2021
Chris and I went to a wonderful brunch over Adrienne Arsh’s home. The brunch was in honor of Christine LaGarde. the typical Washington a list was there. It was a fun brunch since Adrienne is such a wonderful and generous person. I tend to shy away from these functions since everyone gathers around me wanting to take photos and telling me what a wonderful job I’m doing.
For the record, I too go to a lot of Washington brunches and book parties—yet I have never met Fauci. Am I not getting invited to the right “Super a list” parties? Whom do I talk to about this?
November 5, 2021
Another extraordinary Day !!! I attended the Funeral services of General Colin L Powell at the Washington National Cathedral at the invitation of the Powell family.
He added:
On the wayout General Mark Milley came up to me put his arms around my shoulder and said “the only person who was getting his balls kicked more than me in Washington is you “. I responded by saying “no shit”. he then responded by saying “Fuck ‘em”.
November 11, 2022
Exciting day. In preparation for the installing of my “living portrait’ by Hugo Crosthwaite into the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow, there was a gala celebration at the home of Jeff Bezos … His home is an enormous mansion that goes on and on.
November 16, 2022
Terrific event last evening. I was honored at the home of the French Ambassador to the United States … where I received the Pasteur Medal commemorating the bicentenary of Louis Pasteur’s birth in 1822.
May 5, 2020
OMG! This is really getting nutsy. Sally Quinn evidently wrote a book some time ago about a character that is me.
July 1, 2020
Had dinner over Jake Tapper and Jen Tapper’s home in DC. Terrific couple. Friendship building.
April 17, 2021
Dana Bash sent me a text: “I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I…. As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply “Mr. Jordan, go f— yourself””
Presumably, this referred to Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio. Also, presumably, Fauci refrained from telling him this.
June 5, 2020
I made favorable comments today on CNBC about vaccines and decreasing of # of cases and the stock market went up by 3%. I should (but will not) contact the POTUS and say that he told me on Tuesday that my remarks blunted the increase in the Stock Market and cost him “one trillion fucking dollars”. And so now my remarks actually made him “4 trillion fucking dollars”, and so he owes me $3 trillion.
August 20, 2020
Becoming really nice pen pal with Joan Baez.
This appears to be true. Fauci says she texted him later that year on his birthday (“HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY AND MANY MORE”). The onetime “Queen of Folk” also called Donald Trump a “miserable fuck,” according to the diary, and told Fauci that he should be honored by the president’s attacks on him.
October 5, 2020
POTUS called me up from his hospital room at Walter Reed. 1:08 PM. He rambled on about the suite he was in and how expensive it was to build it. Says it is better than the White House. Asked me if I have ever been there. I told him about the time I went there to help in the treatment of President Nixon’s pneumonia.
November 4, 2021 (“Call from Barack Obama”)
Obama said That Donald Trump junior is “A fucking moron”. He apologized for using crude language but then went on to say that Donald Trump was a hopeless idiot who was a pathologic liar.
August 14, 2020
Joan Baez sent me a beautiful note this evening.
Hi Tony,
Just a thought..
People have told me over and over how important I was I’m their lives..I never really either believed them or paid them much attention. But maybe too much modesty, false or otherwise, is as silly as blowing ones own trumpet to loudly.
Fauci and Baez had not yet met in person at that point. But Baez invited him to attend a May 2021 ceremony in which she received the “Kennedy Center medallion for lifetime performance as a performing artist.”
[Gal Beckerman: The revelatory cringe of Anthony Fauci]
“Finally, I got to meet her in person after the year-long building up of our friendship via texts and phone calls,” Fauci gushed to his diary. “She is an absolutely amazing, warm an endearing person, and our friendship was cemented last night as it became clear that we really were, as I said, ‘meant for each other ‘.”
I have questions!
August 30, 2020
Spoke with Joan Baez today – She wants to use the portrait of me [one Baez had painted] to advertise the need for science and adhering to public health messages. In essence, she wants to use the portrait in PSAs. She really is wonderful.
October 1, 2020
Hope Hicks is infected!!!
November 17, 2021
I went to a book party last night for Jonathan Karl’s new book about Trump. It took place at the Cafe Milano. The place was incredibly crowded and I was almost forced to take my mask off for 2/3 of the time I was there since they were serving drinks and people were talking and taking selfies. I was totally swamped all night by people wanting to say hello, shake my hands, and take pictures with me. I could not get away from it . Although some people may think that this is great to have people treat you like Elvis Presley , but it was really very unnerving.
Unnerving indeed. Reading Fauci’s dispatches left me with a strong sense of returning to a grainy dream state. How did we survive that time? Did this really happen? And did Barbra Streisand really call Fauci’s cellphone?
Yes, she did. “Had great call with Barbra Streisand,” Fauci wrote on February 23, 2021. She consulted him on a medical issue. “We then stared discussing life in general,” he continued (more friendship-building). “I told her that I work listening to her songs on ALEXA. She really did not know what ALEXA was. I accidentally butt called her later in the evening and she said that she was going to call me anyway.”
Celebrities: They’re just like us!
“I brought the phone over to ALEXA and asked to play ‘Songs by Barbra Streisand’,” Fauci added. “When the song came on loud and clear, she started laughing and absolutely loved it!”
Embarrassing as this all may be, a lot of high-level government officials insist on keeping diaries in which they chronicle their high-level government activities. This happens even, or especially, when these activities involve sensitive matters. And if these diaries become public (which seems to occur with some frequency), they can yield irresistible morsels for history’s sake. Or, at the very least, gossip’s sake.
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