Future Football Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers is preparing for his last season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, so he was flippant in a recent interview with his pal Pat McAfee at ESPN. When asked about his mindset during his final year, Rodgers wisecracked: “I’m going to plead the Fifth. Like that absolute coward Tony Fauci.”

Rodgers, along with other famous athletes like tennis star Novak Djokovic, decided against getting the COVID vaccine, and professed that he wasn’t going to worry about a “cancel-culture casket.” He fudged an answer that he was “inoculated,” giving the false impression he’d gotten a COVID shot.

If you make millions for being in peak physical condition, it’s understandable you might worry about the effects of a newly manufactured vaccine. When Rodgers became sick with COVID during the 2021 season, sports journalists ganged up on his decision. NBC’s Mike Florio trashed him as a “big fat liar” running a “scam.”

“He deliberately staked out the position that he thought would result in the least scorn and criticism from the media,” Florio wrote. “And most in the media were of the mind that you should get vaccinated. So this all goes back to his sensitivity.”

Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s Dr. Fauci who looks like a liar running a bit of a scam. His private writings about the origins and death rate of COVID were at odds with his public statements. So naturally, Rodgers went after Fauci when given the platform:

“Are you kidding me? Yeah, 111 times, and you’ve got a pardon and pleaded over 100 times. What are you scared of, Tony?” Rodgers cracked: “I thought you were ‘I am Science.’ And you get up there and you can’t answer a question. I thought you had a pardon there, Tony? Why couldn’t you answer one question the entire time?”

Rodgers added: “Now, they can’t talk about the COVID stuff, because, obviously, it was made in a lab in China; that’s not even questionable now. Tony Fauci is an absolute criminal.”

Rodgers wondered whether the media that hounded him five years ago did “even a minute” on Fauci pleading the Fifth. The TV networks definitely did — but they maintained their pro-Fauci bias, that his Fifth Amendment routine wasn’t as offensive as the Republican demands for accountability.

For those who are outraged at the idea that Fauci could be prosecuted for his COVID pronouncements or his failure to testify, they should recall how the other side of the debate fervently wanted to put unvaccinated Americans in prisons or detention camps for endangering people’s health.

Liberals have assaulted Rodgers for having no background in science and spreading “misinformation” about public health. This is fascinating because they love it when leftist athletes pronounce on subjects about which they have no credentials to discuss. That might be because they think leftists can be painted as the right kind of people, the smart people.

Take retired soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who has inveighed against the conservatives and their attempted “genocide” and “erasure” of transgender activists. She favors including biological men in women’s sports, and no one in the elitist media attacks her for having no medical background. No one attacks her gender-bending viewpoint as “misinformation.”

Star athletes have an obvious platform to share cultural and political opinions. Conservatives have objected that their athletic excellence doesn’t make them any wiser than the masses. But the Left loves promoting the hot takes of their favorite athletes, adding glamour to their leftist views, while they try to cancel opinions they can’t abide.

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