Why Go After Fauci Now? ⁠66%

By Steve M.⁠81%

8/3/2026, 4:31:57 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Quote-first Misdirection, and Appeal to Authority, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 23.4% saturation with 158 hits. Analysis detected 1,431 faulty-reasoning hits from 675 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠66% (9,487 of 27,714 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 65.80% of the article peer group.

A couple of months ago, Ezra Klein said this: 
> My pet theory right now is that President Trump is not trying to win the midterm elections. 
> ... if he wanted to win the midterms, he’d be moving to the center. 
He’d be focusing on the things that Americans are angry about, disappointed in him about. 
He’d be supporting the strongest Republicans in contested races and doing everything he could to bolster Republicans in vulnerable states and districts. 
> He’s not doing even a little bit of that. 
Many people agree with Klein. 
They see a president who's focused on construction projects and the SAVE America Act rather than affordability and assume he's not thinking about motivating voters. 
It's widely assumed that House and Senate Republicans are different. 
They passed a bipartisan housing bill! 
They're at least trying to seem like a party that wants to help people! 
But they're not all that different from the president. 
You really need to understand that this is their idea of an election pitch: 
> Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci will appear before the Senate this week for a hearing. 
Leading up to his appearance, Sen. 
Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released thousands of pages of Fauci’s diary entries from 2020 to 2022. 
Right now, normal people care about gas prices, grocery and housing costs, produce that causes explosive diarrhea, and other concerns related to the world we live in right now. 
But this story, about a government official who retired nearly four years ago, is a right-wing media obsession now. 
Here's just a sample of the headlines: 
> * Amanda Macias, Fox News: Fauci's Newly Released Covid Diaries Reveal Bizarre Fixation on Fame as Pandemic Deaths Mounted 
> * Bob Hoge, RedState: Fauci's Diary Reveals Astonishing Level of Sycophantic Groveling by the Legacy Media 
> * Alana Mastrangelo, Breitbart: Actress Patricia Heaton on Fauci Diaries: Lying COVID Tyrant Was ‘Exulting in His Fame’ While We Were Locked Down 
> * Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire: The Hero Complex That Held America Hostage: For Anthony Fauci, it was Anthony Fauci and his ego, everywhere, all of the time. 
> * Hans Mahncke, The Federalist: 10 Questions for Congress to Ask Fauci About His Covid Corruption and Coverup 
And on and on. 
Why this now? 
Why these hearings now? 
No one's going to get Fauci to change his mind about the origin of the virus -- he still believes it emerged naturally, not from a lab, as do many other experts. 
He won't denounce the government's efforts to minimize death and suffering during the worst of the COVID pandemic, when -- it should be noted -- he was working for Donald Trump, not a Democrat. 
(Fauci was serving as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a job to which he'd been appointed during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.) 
The facts of his career don't matter -- to the GOP base, Fauci in 2020 represents Democrats in 2026. 
Will these revelations and hearings really inspire voters in the Republican Party's grievance-collector base to turn out in November? 
Hard to know, but Republicans need something, as The Washington Post noted a couple of days ago: 
> Republican pollsters and political groups are raising the alarm that their party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November’s midterm elections.... 
> The lack of enthusiasm is reaching deep into Republicans’ loyal base, spreading to the party’s most consistent voters — who have shown up to vote in all of the past four primaries and general elections, according to an analysis done by Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative super PAC affiliated with billionaire Charles Koch.... 
> About 1 in 5 reliable Republican base voters are at risk this November, according to Nathan Nascimento, executive director at AFP Action. 
Apart from that housing bill, Republicans have nothing positive to offer their own voters. 
So they're giving them hate. 
We'll see if it works. 
Published with permission of No More Mister Nice Blog 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 4.7%Steve M.: 4.3%Crooks and Liars: 7.4%Confirmation Bias4.7%This article: 2.2%Steve M.: 0.6%Crooks and Liars: 0.8%Anchoring Bias2.2%This article: 10.2%Steve M.: 4.7%Crooks and Liars: 2.9%Availability Heuristic10.2%This article: 4.7%Steve M.: 1.2%Crooks and Liars: 0.6%Representativeness Heuristic4.7%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.3%Crooks and Liars: 0.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 2.3%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 1.8%Steve M.: 2.0%Crooks and Liars: 7.3%Framing Effect1.8%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.2%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.7%Steve M.: 0.2%Crooks and Liars: 1.1%Optimism Bias0.7%This article: 11.3%Steve M.: 2.8%Crooks and Liars: 2.0%Pessimism Bias11.3%This article: 21.2%Steve M.: 6.0%Crooks and Liars: 17.5%Negativity Bias21.2%This article: 2.8%Steve M.: 0.7%Crooks and Liars: 3.3%Self-Serving Bias2.8%This article: 7.3%Steve M.: 6.0%Crooks and Liars: 2.1%Fundamental Attribution Error7.3%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 1.3%Steve M.: 2.1%Crooks and Liars: 2.3%In-Group Bias1.3%This article: 5.6%Steve M.: 3.9%Crooks and Liars: 2.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias5.6%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 3.3%Crooks and Liars: 2.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.1%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.5%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 2.1%Steve M.: 0.5%Crooks and Liars: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias2.1%This article: 8.6%Steve M.: 8.1%Crooks and Liars: 10.8%Ad Hominem8.6%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 1.2%Crooks and Liars: 2.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 14.1%Steve M.: 4.7%Crooks and Liars: 3.0%Appeal to Authority14.1%This article: 5.5%Steve M.: 3.2%Crooks and Liars: 1.9%False Dilemma5.5%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.5%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.2%Steve M.: 6.1%Crooks and Liars: 10.3%Hasty Generalization9.2%This article: 0.6%Steve M.: 0.1%Crooks and Liars: 1.1%Red Herring0.6%This article: 0.7%Steve M.: 0.9%Crooks and Liars: 0.8%Bandwagon0.7%This article: 23.4%Steve M.: 8.5%Crooks and Liars: 7.7%Appeal to Emotion23.4%This article: 3.6%Steve M.: 1.6%Crooks and Liars: 1.5%Begging the Question3.6%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.0%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 5.0%Steve M.: 2.5%Crooks and Liars: 1.2%Tu Quoque5.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 5.6%Steve M.: 1.4%Crooks and Liars: 0.6%No True Scotsman5.6%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.6%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 5.0%Steve M.: 1.3%Crooks and Liars: 0.9%Special Pleading5.0%This article: 0.0%Steve M.: 0.0%Crooks and Liars: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 1.3%Steve M.: 4.7%Crooks and Liars: 2.6%Unattributed Quote1.3%This article: 16.1%Steve M.: 4.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.3%Quote-first Misdirection16.1%This article: 12.1%Steve M.: 11.9%Crooks and Liars: 23.7%Biased Writer Voice12.1%This article: 2.1%Steve M.: 1.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.3%Indoctrination2.1%This article: 11.4%Steve M.: 3.7%Crooks and Liars: 9.8%Politically Left Leaning Bias11.4%This article: 8.1%Steve M.: 2.0%Crooks and Liars: 1.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias8.1%This article: 3.4%Steve M.: 0.9%Crooks and Liars: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…3.4%

675 words analyzed.

Speakers

10speakers38%attributed speech416writer words
Selected voice

Ben Shapiro

100%flagged-word coverage
29 attributed words11% of attributed speech80% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Quote-first Misdirection+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Ben Shapiro: 100.0%100.0%Politically Left Leaning B-18.5 ptsWriter: 18.5%Ben Shapiro: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-15.4 ptsWriter: 15.4%Ben Shapiro: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-3.4 ptsWriter: 3.4%Ben Shapiro: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-2.2 ptsWriter: 2.2%Ben Shapiro: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.