Anyone else get the sense that Rand Paul is just plain sick of Anthony Fauci? We ask because it’s hard to watch their back-and-forth yesterday during a Senate hearing on COVID-19 and come to any other conclusion.

It’s possible, of course, that the junior senator from Kentucky was simply having a bad day. After all, he is a medical doctor, and The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body did just approve, by an infuriatingly tight 50-49 margin, the worst nominee ever for secretary of Health and Human Services. That nominee, now a Cabinet member, is California’s Xavier Becerra, the abortion absolutist with zero medical experience and, as Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky put it, “a demonstrated history of hostility toward basic values like the freedom of conscience.”

In light of this abject senatorial failure, then, it’s understandable why Paul might be feeling less than charitable toward an 80-year-old career swamp creature like Fauci. “You’ve had the [Trump Operation Warp Speed] vaccine and you’re wearing two masks. Isn’t that theater?” Paul demanded to know. “Given that no scientific studies have shown significant numbers of reinfections of patients previously infected or previously vaccinated, what specific studies do you cite to argue the public should be wearing masks well into 2022?”

If you’re in a hurry, skip ahead to the 3:10 mark of the clip below, where Paul really turns up the heat.

Rand Paul just exploded on Dr. Fauci over the “need” for wearing masks after you’ve been vaccinated pic.twitter.com/OZproppExf

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 18, 2021

“You’ve been vaccinated and you parade around in two masks for show,” Paul says to Fauci. “You can’t get it again. There’s virtually 0% chance you’re gonna get it, and yet you’re telling people that have had the vaccine, that have immunity — you’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks that have been vaccinated. … You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? … You want people to get the vaccine? Give them a reward instead of telling them that the nanny state is going to be there for three more years and you gotta wear a mask forever. People don’t want to hear it; there’s no science behind it.”

It’s a powerful takedown, and it neatly delineates the competing camps in the COVID-19 war: one camp that understands the power of fear as a means of controlling the masses, and one camp that understands the concept of herd immunity and the need for the American people to ditch the masks and get back to living their lives again.

Paul’s takedown, though, also adds to a growing body of evidence that Fauci simply isn’t to be trusted. As Glenn Reynolds notes, “Just over a year ago, in early March 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci was telling us it was safe to go on a cruise, and experts said that masks wouldn’t be of any use for most people. … Fauci also told us last April that it would be at least a year to 18 months before we saw a vaccine. … When asked about herd immunity, Fauci moved the goalposts. … Why? As Fauci admitted, he was manipulating us: ‘When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%. … Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, "I can nudge this up a bit,” so I went to 80, 85.’“

And he wonders why Rand Paul and the rest of us are no longer genuflecting.

"Likewise,” Reynolds continues, “lockdowns were widely prescribed, and continue to be, even though the World Health Organization admits they don’t work. (A recent paper in Nature came to the same conclusion.) Where’s the science?”

Indeed. Where’s the science, Dr. Fauci?