National Review Online
Friday, January 31, 2025
It shouldn’t be shocking that President Trump has
nominated an evidence-based, pro-vaccine figure to be his HHS secretary.
It is, however, a little surprising that this person
turns out to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Or, so you’d believe, listening to Kennedy testify at his
confirmation hearings. There are confirmation conversions, and then there’s
what we’ve seen from Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard the last couple of days. They’ve
made the famous statement attributed to Henry of Navarre — Paris is worth a
Mass — look sincere by comparison.
It goes without saying that there’s a role for gadflies
and dissenters in our society (we’ve published many of them over the years),
and their deep-felt convictions can make them admirable even if they are
wrong-headed. They aren’t usually appointed to positions of major governmental
responsibility after accumulating zero or very little relevant experience,
though. Back in the day, no one would have thought to make Ralph Nader the
secretary of transportation, and if he had been nominated, he surely would have
stuck to his guns during his confirmation hearings.
Kennedy and Gabbard, in contrast, are selling new
versions of themselves minted shortly after Trump picked them.
At his Senate finance committee hearing, Kennedy wanted
everyone to know that he’s not anti-vaccine — and has the receipts. His own
children are vaccinated. He left out that he has said that he regrets that.
He’s written books about vaccines. Yes, but he didn’t mention that they
were all intended to cast doubt on vaccines. He’s just been willing to ask
uncomfortable questions. Asking questions is obviously fine — if you are
willing to accept evidence not to your liking. But Kennedy has a long, undistinguished record of
relying on the work of charlatans to make wild charges, of not correcting the
record when he is proven wrong, and then going to find more bad evidence to
continue to make the same insinuations.
Under more focused scrutiny on his second day of hearings
before the Senate health committee, RFK Jr. had more trouble dancing around his
views and pointedly refused to state that vaccines don’t cause autism. On top
of this, he once again demonstrated his rank ignorance of Medicare. After he
badly botched basic statements about that program and Medicaid on the first
day, one might have assumed that he would have quickly read up to avoid further
embarrassing mistakes, but he still couldn’t get the basics right (for
instance, he struggled when asked to explain what
the different parts of Medicare do).
Meanwhile, in her testimony before the Senate
intelligence committee, Tulsi Gabbard couldn’t persuasively explain why she’d
gone from a fierce, uncompromising opponent of Section 702 of FISA, which
allows the U.S. to surveil foreigners overseas, to a firm supporter. Her sudden
shift is as stark as a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
suddenly endorsing Jägermeister shots during lunch breaks. She also seemed
tenuously informed on the workings of the program.
Repeatedly pressed on her views on Edward Snowden, whom
she once considered a brave whistleblower who should be pardoned forthwith, she
reverted over and over again to a rote answer about how Snowden broke the law
and shouldn’t have released our secrets the way he did. Gabbard held on to this
talking point, clearly crafted by her handlers, for dear life.
Watching these performances, observers who have disagreed
with Kennedy and Gabbard over the years might be tempted to conclude that at
least they don’t have the courage of their convictions. But Kennedy and Gabbard
are obviously trying to backpedal just enough to get confirmed without any true
change in their worldviews. Senators shouldn’t be fooled.
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