Reading it on the page, one is reminded one of an overwrought crime drama where the most crooked and vindictive policeman is left at the end of the line, exposed for what he is, impotently shouting, “I am the law” before his satisfying comeuppance.

But it’s actually easier to understand than that. “I represent science” is roughly Fauci’s job, if you think of “science” as a special-interest lobby, rather than as an iterative process for investigating truths about nature. He is, along with the director of the NIH, effectively the head of an enormous industry that relies almost exclusively on federal funding.

The question is whether the Biden administration can stand to have Fauci much longer. Fauci has gone on television to preemptively cancel Christmas, only to reel it back the next day. He went on the talk shows this weekend to say nothing useful about the new variant of the disease, but to lecture the world to prepare for the imposition of the same policies that failed to contain the previous, less-infective variants.