Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
“History will figure that out on its own.” That is what Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) recently replied to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In a heated congressional exchange, Fauci derided the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic was due to the leak of a dangerous virus, engineered in the Chinese Wuhan virology lab—and in part funded by U.S. health agencies, on the prompt of Fauci himself.
Fauci offered arguments from authority by citing his own expertise, as well as that of “card-carrying” specialists.
But in truth, there is little evidence that any animal species has been found infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus or a close relative that causes COVID-19 or a similar illness.
Many federal health experts increasingly believe the virus was man-made. A number argue that it was likely a product of gain-of-function research that was funded in part by a U.S. government grant.
Others concede that Fauci and Dr. Peter Daszak—who was involved in gain-of-function research, often in cooperation with the Chinese—were not candid about the full extent of their ties to the Wuhan lab. But despite Chinese resistance to releasing pertinent data, history eventually will sort the truth out—as it does with most controversies of the moment.
Five years ago, the New York Times, the Washington Post, most of the mainstream media, and the majority of the bipartisan Washington. D.C. political and government establishments insisted that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election.
In support of such conspiracy theories, they fixated on the so-called Steele dossier. It was a supposedly independent research effort detailing “proof” of Trump-Russian cooperation to rob Hillary Clinton of the election.
That supposed evidence was the unspoken ground swell for a 22-month, $40-million special counsel investigation of Trump conducted by former FBI head Robert Mueller.
For over 650 days, the country was consumed with “Russian collusion.” Cable news outlets, public television and radio pundits, along with high-ranking Democratic politicians, almost daily announced the impending end of the colluding Trump Administration.
They peddled rumors of Trump’s supposed obscene activity in Moscow. They spun tales of mysterious meetings between Trump’s family and Russian operatives, and of Trump surrogates’ supposed trips to meet with Russian colluding officials.
Christopher Steele, the architect of the “dossier,” had not been to Russia in decades. He was a rank partisan in the pay of the Clinton campaign—and for a time the FBI itself.
Five years later, history has almost sorted out the fable that the most powerful, wealthy, and influential Americans in the nation once foisted upon the public.
Special prosecutor John Durham seems to be slowly indicting the promulgators of the hoax. The earlier lengthy internal audit by Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited wrongdoing on the part of the Department of Justice and FBI.
The Mueller investigation failed to find any proof of Russian-Trump collusion. The 2018 majority report of the House Intelligence Committee came to the same conclusion.
The admission of false statements by former FBI interim director Andrew McCabe, along with the felonious altering of a court document by FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, were other elements of the warped and unprofessional behavior of the FBI.
Both Mueller and former FBI Director James Comey were unable to answer fundamental questions while under oath about the dossier and the role of its authors in spreading the collusion hoax. Mueller’s legal team and Comey himself habitually leaked rumors that fed the collusion hoax.
History, however, is slowly sorting it out—despite the approved narrative of the well-connected who misled the country to pursue their own political agendas.
Someday historians of public health will unravel the full costs of locking down most of America in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. What are now near-taboo topics—the vigorous natural immunity offered from prior infection, and the terrible damage done by the quarantines—earn cancel culture damnation, employment suspension, and media calumny. But soon they likely will become matter-of-factly accepted as truth.
The same will be said of the hysterical myths that surround the unfortunate January 6 riot at the Capitol. Five years from now history will show that there was no conspiracy, no pre-planned “insurrection”—as the FBI has already concluded.
The late Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was not murdered as was alleged. Those “armed” inside the Capitol did not carry—much less use—guns. The one violent death, that of Ashli Babbitt, was of an unarmed female who was lethally shot by an officer for attempting to enter through a broken window.
The solitary confinement, indefinite incarceration, and inhumane jail conditions accorded some of the accused will be shown contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America.
In other words, history eventually will sort it all out.
Or as the second-century A.D. skeptic philosopher Sextus Empricus noted, eventually the truth emerges and cosmic justice is rendered: “The millstones of the gods grind late, but they grind fine.”
I too remain hopeful that the truth will be “ground out” by history eventually. My fear is it will be titled “The rise and fall of the United States of America.”
Took 80 years of pain for Bolshevik revolution to be righted.
Its righted is it? Russians enjoying liberty and free markets today are they?
I thought they were being slightly less oppressed by a different oligarchy of A holes.
I never understood why the Mueller investigation was limited to Trump and Republicans. If it was for collusion concerning Russian involvement in the 2016 election, then it should have included the facts (now well known) that it was linked to the Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton, Fusion GPS, and the other firms associated with the Democrats
I assume youre being rhetorical. The point of Russian collusion was never about Russia or collusion. It was GET TRUMP! It was how DARE “the people” elect someone the oligarchy doesnt approve of.
B/c it was never intended to find the truth about anything. It was raw political power, and political victory “by any means necessary.”
Sir Lawrence Olivier might disagree – he ended a movie (The Devil’s Disciple) with the line, “History will tell lies.”
History is no longer written by the winners, or the losers. It is written by the pundits and social media. It will be whatever Facebook and the Washington Post want it to be and if anything else is published it will be squashed immediately much like the Hunter laptop. And if you dare to point out the obvious expect a visit from the local FBI.
Dr. Hanson: I m your age…I read and hang on every word you write and say. But your optimism and incredible naivete is sometimes disheartening. So what if “history” gets it right? The leftists won…they got rid of Trump…half the nation voted against low gas prices, energy independence, peace and responsible foreign policy. Biden can’t string a coherent sentence together, falls down stairs, describes Satchel Paige as a “great Negro,” and a totally discredited “Steele dossier” is still regarded as truth. This is a nation that can’t hold an honest election and ignores blatant election fraud. I don’t care if our grandkids read a corrected history. I’m living in a defeated reality with gas up over a dollar in less than a year, uncontrolled illegal immigration, increased taxes, inflation that is wrecking the value of the measly dollars I’ve managed to save over the years, and my kids can’t afford to buy a house. China wages chemical warfare on the US, and we refuse to hold them responsible. HISTORY BE DAMNED…as Harry Reid said when he was called out for lying about having a friend who told him Mitt Romney didn’t pay any taxes…he just laughed and responded, “it worked, didn’t it?”
I’m the same age, and I agree with you. This is not the country it used to be, and probably never will be.
You could end up as a published naive reader instead of an angry one. A compromised election in 20 orchestrated and carried out through the eleventh hour can anyone only fully process in hind sight. Remember the Biden Administrations policies bucked hard left after selling out for less. The elections in Virginia signal a turn toward the right could very well prove the direction of an overall trajectory the U.S. has in the making.
Ahmen!
Having viewed government corruption for many decades, I am no longer surprised by the depths of their depravity. But this depravity led to 652,000,000 Covid infections and 6,600,000 deaths–more than the Hundred-Years War–with more than 1,100,000 deaths here in the US. History will make it very clear who is responsible for those horrific statistics.