Saturday is Dr. Anthony Fauci’s last official day as the highest paid employee in the government. For many, his farewell couldn’t come soon enough. But his departure is prompting many adoring articles from the liberal media, including from the New York Times.

The first part of the article captured the attention of many because it said so much about Fauci, as well as the cult of Fauci.

The walls in Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s home office are adorned with portraits of him, drawn and painted by some of his many fans. The most striking one is by the singer Joan Baez. The two of them, he said, “have become pretty good friends over the years.”

Dr. Fauci seemed a little uncomfortable with people knowing about the pictures. He said that previously when they were captured on camera, the “far right” attacked him as an “egomaniac.” If someone goes to the trouble of sending him a portrait of himself, he said, he would “feel like I’m disrespecting them” if he discarded it.

This picture has three pointed out, but there were more there.

It’s super creepy. pic.twitter.com/Ta8WIPMxqn

— Natalie F Danelishen (@Chesschick01) December 30, 2022

Fauci says he feels obligated to display the portraits that his fans create and send to him, because, you know, it would be unkind not to put them up on display all over his house, or something pic.twitter.com/pIo97pJ4gS

— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) December 29, 2022

It’s not his narcissism or his insecurity about himself, you see. It’s just that he can’t deny the fans their love for him. And if you think it’s creepy or weird that he’s surrounded by pictures of himself, you’re just an evil “far right” person, according to him. That says a lot again about Fauci’s opinion of himself and his bias.

Maybe he just loves looking at science?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 30, 2022

And it wasn’t just his home, as this picture showed, his office is a virtual shrine to himself. Does he have “small man’s syndrome”?

Where's Fauci?

It's like where's Waldo, but instead of just 1 Waldo, Fauci is everywhere. I count 27 confirmed Faucis. If you assume he only puts up pictures of himself it's probably in the hundreds. Not to mention the wall space you can't see. pic.twitter.com/iC4sCFWfKR

— Karl Dierenbach (@Dierenbach) April 21, 2022

He spoke about himself in the third person as he said how he might write a memoir about himself.

Because if you look at what Tony Fauci was and is, Tony Fauci is not defined by Covid. I would much rather give a story of the whole me, from the time I grew up in the streets of Brooklyn to where I am right now.

This was his take on how they dealt with COVID, “But we did — the scientific community did a great job on this. We did.”

His response to what he wanted the public to know about him? “They don’t know hardly anything about the physician aspect of me and how sensitive I am and empathetic towards illness and suffering,” Fauci said. Could he pump himself up anymore? No wonder there are portraits everywhere of him.

But yes, most people found it pretty creepy that he surrounded himself with portraits of himself, Elon Musk among them. He had the perfect troll of Fauci.

creepy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 30, 2022

That’s a shot at Fauci claiming that he was “science” — that criticizing him was criticizing science. As I wrote on Thursday, Musk has not been shy about criticizing “Science” Fauci for that, noting that questioning was part of the scientific method. Musk also called him out on his actions regarding gain-of-function research.

Of course, the softball article didn’t ask him any tough questions or even touch on gain-of-function. But it did note that he has a lot of testimony coming in his future before Congress.