The wingers have figured out who the bad guy is in the coronavirus pandemic, and SURPRISE it is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Or as Fox's most shameless harpy calls him, "Doctor Doom."

Here's Laura Ingraham last night telling her millions of viewers that the guy who stood behind Trump at one million coronavirus briefings and managed not to shout THIS GUY IS FUCKING INSANE! is actually working for the Biden campaign.

"Well Doctor Doom himself at a Senate hearing today spreading more covid panic and undermining Trump's agenda," she sneered. "Now at this point, can we all just admit the fact that Fauci's basically working for the Biden campaign? For all we know, he could be, I don't know, Joe's running mate? Why not? Guess he doesn't fit the bill."

Oh, zing! Because Fauci's a white guy, and not a woman of color, get it?

The wingers have been trying to dent Fauci's approval rating for months, ever since they realized that his widespread popularity and position of trust with the public made him basically unfireable. Ingraham's been taking shots at him on the regular, and she sure as hell wasn't going to pass on the opportunity to dirty him up after the doctor testified to the Senate that we might be facing 100,000 new COVID-19 cases a day if Americans don't pull our shit together and quit heading out to bars to mingle and swap spit.

"Bars: really not good, really not good. Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news. We really have got to stop that," the doctor said grimly. To which Rand Paul, an IRL doctor (more or less), replied that, "We shouldn't presume that a group of experts somehow knows what's best for everyone."

"Perhaps our planners might think twice before they weigh in on every subject," the Kentucky Republican added. "Perhaps our government experts might hold their tongue before expressing their opinion."

Expressing his opinion on public health is literally Dr. Fauci's job. The Senate invited him to testify to give his opinion on how to fight the coronavirus pandemic which is ravaging the South and West at the moment. And speaking of states getting ravaged, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick joined Ingraham on the White Grievance Is Power Hour last night to crap on Fauci.

Patrick, who recently suggested that we sacrifice the elderly to protect the economy (GFYS, you can't have my mother!), touted his own state's wonderful COVID response.

"We've had 2,224 people die, and New York has had over 31,000," he bragged. "Even California has had almost three times as much as Texas, and remember, Laura, those two states have been locked down the whole time, while we haven't. So locking down doesn't work. If it did, those two states would be doing better than Texas."

Very science! But the Lieutenant Governor seems to have omitted one or two tiny details. Like the fact that Texas's new cases are on the rise.

And New York's are not.

There's also the little matter of the COVID positivity rate of total tests performed, which the CDC suggests should be below 5 percent if states want to reopen safely. Texas is at 14.6 percent over the past 7 days, while New York is at 1.1 percent. And while Patrick expresses little sympathy for the 24,000 New Yorkers who lost their lives to COVID-19, he could at least pretend to be concerned about the looming shortage of hospital and ICU capacity in rural areas of his own state.

Haha, just kidding. He's far too busy crapping on Anthony Fauci to bother with that governing shit.

"Fauci said today that he's concerned about states like Texas that skipped over certain things. He doesn't know what he's talking about," Patrick huffed. "We haven't skipped over anything. The only thing I'm skipping over is listening to him. You know, you have a lot of doctors on your show from day one. Your doctors have been right almost every time, and he has been wrong every time on every issue. I don't need his advice any more."

Laura Ingraham and "her doctors" have consistently railed against masks. But go off, dude.

Anyway, good luck Texas. With leadership like that, you're sure to kick corona's ass! Maybe you can shoot it to death? PEW PEW!

Follow Liz Dye on Twitter RIGHT HERE!

Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, this is the link to do it.

How often would you like to donate?

Just once Monthly

Select an amount (USD)

$2$25$5$50$10$100$15$500$20$1000