If Dr. Anthony Fauci were a supervillain, his moniker might be Dr. Inconsistent. The Beltway’s highest-paid “follow the science” bureaucrat has done anything but follow the science, instead making a practice of sticking his finger into the political winds in order to gauge the status of the “science.”

Recall that Fauci was opposed to the wearing of masks … before he was for masks. His flip-flopping was made all the more nefarious by his explanation that he essentially lied to the American public out of concern for ensuring that limited supplies of personal protective equipment were preserved for healthcare workers.

Fauci then became a mask apologist, adamant about the need to continue wearing masks — even multiple masks, even outdoors, even after vaccination. Then came that illustrative clash with Senator Rand Paul, who accused Fauci of not following the science. Fauci responded, “Well, let me just state for the record that masks are not theater. Masks are protective.” Once again, however, Fauci flip-flopped, admitting days later in an ABC interview: “Before the CDC made the recommendation change [on masks after vaccination], I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals. But being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.”

It’s not only over masking that Fauci has flip-flopped, but over questions surround the possible origin of the coronavirus.

Last May, Fauci literally laughed off a question about the possibility that COVID-19 originated from a Wuhan lab leak rather than from nature. “If you accept the premise, which is very strongly supported by scientific evidence, that it was not deliberately mutated and deliberately changed, and you say, if it was in the wild and evolving, the likelihood it jumped species naturally, someone will say, ‘Well, maybe somebody took it from the wild, put it in the lab, and then it escaped from the lab.’ But that means it was in the wild to begin with!” he expounded. “So that’s why I don’t get what they’re talking about. If it isn’t manipulated in the lab and you’re trying to say it escaped from the lab, then how did it get in the lab? It got in the lab because somebody isolated it from the environment. So that’s why I don’t spend a lot of time going in that circular argument.”

Well, that was last year — you know, when we asserted that Senator Tom Cotton was correct in his assessment about the Wuhan lab in January 2020.

Now, Fauci suddenly finds the lab-leak theory not nearly so ridiculous or laughable: “The people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”

Indeed, we just learned this week that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized with a strange illness in November 2019, just before the ChiComs in Beijing say the first man came down with COVID in December of that year. That cover-up is another story, but Fauci has some questions to answer about covid origins.

So do the Chinese — and the next logical question, did they release the virus intentionally?

Venerable journalist Brit Hume cautiously teased that question this week: “[The Wuhan lab source] becomes undeniable, and more clear than ever, but this is a rogue state. This is an outlaw state. This is not a ‘member of the international community.’ … This is a nation which will suppress the truth, maybe wipe out people in their own ranks who try to tell the truth. … So far as we know the Chinese did not [deliberately release the virus] but it hasn’t been disproven, and given the way China acts I don’t believe you can completely rule it out.”

From the public’s point of view, it appears that Fauci’s flip-flopping is catching up to him. A new poll shows that 42% of Americans say their confidence in him has gone down. As the ChiCom Virus pandemic continues to wane, hopefully the presence of Fauci and his “following the science” decreases with it.

(Updated)