Dr. Anthony Fauci, the avuncular immunologist who served a very tumultuous term as president Donald Trump’s chief medical adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been back in the news recently, thanks to what many Republicans see as smoking-gun evidence that he misled the American public with respect to restrictions on everyday life.

The fracas has been somewhat odd, since Fauci had already admitted considerably worse in the past: Misleading Americans about herd immunity and masking, to name two examples. We do not seem to be learning anything useful from the global COVID nightmare.