The antics of Rob Ford are so infuriatingly embarrassing that they taint every single citizen of Toronto with a cloud of shame. At least that is the inescapable impression one gets from reading The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Now Magazine and a variety of other self-obsessed media orifices is the world's most world-classiest city.
If the media is any reflection of popular will, Ford has made being a Torontonian in 2014 so overwhelmingly humiliating, it is mind-boggling that Ontario's entire capitol city hasn't filled up an armada of U-Hauls and embarked on a mass exodus to more progressive pastures, such as in the enlightened Pacific metropolis of Vancouver.
Still, Ford seems to enjoy unassailable popularity with a subhuman class of citizen known by the sobriquet Ford Nation. But the cultivated people who comprise the rest of the city understand the damage caused by the daily assault on the self-esteem of the thinking Torontonian as a result of being vicariously associated with Rob Ford.
Toronto's media nabobs have assumed a near-unified voice that was best expressed by an outraged protester at a City Hall demonstration, her pain reflected in her sour, prune-faced declaration:
"The world is talking about us, they're laughing at us, and they're finding it to be very funny!"Remember, that is a bad thing! A very bad thing!
Ford has used cocaine, he has been drunk in public, and yet his support remains rock-solid. But what if Ford was to do something far worse than any of these past transgressions?
What if Ford were to be involved in the type of scandal where he was caught in a brothel, perhaps of the type that exploited poor, immigrant women, turning them into virtual sex slaves?
Imagine Rob Ford being caught by police naked in such a place. Then, with a prostitute leaving his rented cubicle holding a kleenex freshly damp from Ford's venereal excretion, he lied to a police officer and claimed he was just getting a "shiatsu."
Then imagine if higher-ups in the police department colluded to keep the matter a secret.
 |
| A "community clinic." Seriously? |
Surely then, all of Canada's media would be clamoring for Ford's head and the public along with them?
Let's take this scenario another step. What if this denizen of sleazy, disease-ridden bordellos were to contract a "mystery illness" which he and his family refused to disclose? Were Rob Ford to tragically die from a malady of that nature, there would be no end to the media speculation of the nature of the illness, how he came by it, and why it was being kept a secret.
Or take it just one more unlikely step further. What if Rob Ford's wife, who has no real noteworthy political accomplishment to her name, and who is a dismal public speaker with no real achievement in life other than being the wife of a famous person, was then practically dragooned into running for mayor?
No doubt the media would be united in reviling such a candidacy, wouldn't they?
Naturally, this is all just fantasizing. Nothing so far-fetched could happen in real life, could it?
23 comments:
The fact is Rob Ford is ham handed...if only he had a velvet touch...
Apparently the secret to popularity is having a Village People moustache.
Rob should grow one.
That's it!..oh and take up acoustic guitar...
Presumably this "unassailable popularity" comes from numbers from a frequently discredited polling group. But iust for fun, the same poll that shows Etobicoke Slim with a 45% approval rating only gives him a 25% re-elect. That, as you might imagine, is not good.
As for St. Jack, who gives a shit? Firstly, he's dead and has been for some time now.
Second, it's not like he was dealing directly wit the proprietors of said human trafficking establishment, which would be more analogous to Ford's cavorting with the Dixon City Bloods, and is something our pal Richard never seems to mention.
Third, the overwhelming majority of NDP support in 2011 was in Quebec, which doesn't pay attention to English media generally - and Sun News in particular - and didn't seem to care if they did.
Four, Ford Nation's main line of defense seems to be that the cops are leaking to damage him, which is exactly is what happened to Layton. So it's either always wrong, or stop being a hypocrite.
Five, you get mystery fatal illnesses from jack-shacks where you cum in a Kleenex? Who knew?
But I guess if we're going to start speculating I guess it's okay to ask Hizzoner when he stopped beating his wife, huh?
Have you forgotten the Woodburn Co-Op ?
Lumberjack.
Well stated. The Hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Jesus, Skippy, if somewhere in this you're suggesting that Layton was treated the same way by the media that Ford is, or that there's no hypocrisy in the relentless pursuit of his personal life, but not of politicians with whom they sympathize, then you're living in dream land.
The Toronto Police sympathized with Jack Layton in 1996? Really?
Wasn't that about the same time that their chief goon Craig Brommell was hiring PIs to scope out liberal politicians on Council to blackmail them? I am remembering that correctly, right?
And wasn't the "Jack Shack" story leaked to Sun News about two days before a federal election? The fact that the cops and Sun News were too stupid to realize that it would either be ignored or have a reverse impact in Quebec doesn't absolve them.
Or would you have rather waited 16 years, when he would be running for prime minister, for the Ford story to drop?
My guess is not. You'd truly lose it under those circumstances.
But the things that you're selectively omitting from this story are fascinating.
These include the testimony of Ford's own staff regarding his criminal associations; his improper use of city staff related to liquor runs, computer maintenance and his stupid football fetish.
But again, if you want to go into police interactions with politicians, let's. And let's dig into the zillion calls from Casa Ford to 911 that didn't involve Mary Walsh and some reporter that Hizzoner had to apologize to for calling a pedophile.
THAT could be fun!
The hyperbole in your comments are a bit much to respond to, Skippy. I'm sure the media was stalking Layton to fast food joints and making a big deal about his menu, or if St. Jack were to go to a church service and dance it would be some sort of outrage as it was with Ford. And Mr & Mrs Layton's six figure expense account with separate his and hers hotel suites... At least Ford's foibles don't get expensed by him back to the taxpayer.
As a matter of fact, "The Media" didn't do any such thing. Your boy got hammered and starting acting like Peter Tosh in public and some guy recorded it on his phone and put it on You Tube.
Another guy with a phone showed Hizzoner with a possible co-conspirator, who was already convicted of threatening to kill a woman and is facing charges for drug dealing and extortion in getting the crack tape that you said was faked back for him.
Come to think of it, I don't think you've ever mentioned Sandro Lisi on your blog, which I'm sure you would have if he were connected to a Liberal or NDP politician.
But no one has alleged that there were any media at Ye Olde Steak Queen or that anyone sent them there. Only you.
Furthermore, I don't recall the evening's dinner choices being an issue, but rather his drunken impression of Peter Tosh, just three weeks after vowing not to drink again. Oh, and his company.
And I think I just gave several eamples of how Slim's foibles are being expensed o the public.
There are a couple of couple of questions, I like to ask you in private.
Here is another good scenario to ponder.
What if one very cold winter evening Rob Ford were to send out a Tweet saying that his wife was missing and allude that she was suffering from depression?
What if a few hours later Rob Ford issued a prepared statement saying that Police had found the body of his wife and that he "found comfort" knowing that she had found relief from the depression that plagued her "for years"?
What if in the following days and weeks the public was never told EXACTLY how his wife died - What if we were just told to take Rob's word that she had "committed suicide" and just leave it at that?
What if in the days and weeks that followed we were to learn that prior to his spouses death he was planning to relocate to Costa
Rica - a country popular with Canadian fugitives?
What if we were to learn that his two kids were not his own biological children but were adopted and that he and his wife were allowed to adopt them despite her years of chronic mental illness and his admitted drug use?
Imagine the reaction from the press in the above scenario! They would be going nuts and yet as we see time and time again there is a double standard in this city.
As we know a former Liberal cabinet minister lost his husband under the exact same circumstances and to this date the media has not asked one question and the circumstances surrounding the husbands death remain a complete mystery!
Skippy, I'll grant you that "the media" wasn't here recording Ford with a cell phone cam on this occasion. But it was the media who decided that bit of innocuous goofiness was somehow the most important news item in Canada at the moment. It's no surprise anyone who sees Ford in public thinks they'd better record it - they must think they'll be in line for another of those $5000 payouts from The Toronto Star.
And don't get me started on that rag. It has ceased to be a credible newspaper a long time ago. It's now sunk to being a tiny shade better than that union-financed, Marxist propaganda shitrag rabble.ca.
And as for you, Peepers, how dare you bring up that tragic event!? Ezra Levant made that point and that made him a thought criminal, despised among the progressive elites.
Oh wait..he already was anyway... never mind...
Skippy - the thing that pisses people like me (and Rich) off is not that Ford isn't an idiot - let's call it settled law that his personal behaviour of late is at least as bad as ours was at times.
The thing that has stirred the controversy is hypocrisy. Inter alia, Rich and I have former cokehead friends who express bald-faced, shameless, irony-deficient outrage at Ford's coke use. They're shocked, just shocked. One's self-righteous-hypocrisy sensor is set to screaming. Times twenty-two thousand equals the writers at Now Magazine and The Star and a whole bunch of otherwise reasonable people, er including...
The problem is not that Ford is subjected to close media scrutiny. That's totally cool and on his own lookout. It's the double standard. Rich is 100% right to call them out on this.
Jack really should not have been given a mulligan for patronising a hand-job house and claiming he thought it was a "community clinic." That's a banal, boring, bogus lie, and he really did not pay any appropriate price. Had he fessed up, his image as a person at least - would have benefitted. As such, this will always be a serious leak in the balloon of his legacy.
I often wish I could have run for public office, but I can't and never will because my closet is maximally chock full. That's the case with a lot of us. So it goes. We move on and do other things.
Jack was a cynical, boring, lying self-interested pol without viable policy solutions and no one really cared to call him on dishonesty. He's Saint Jack in this idiotic town. Ford is a no-argment, bone fide klutz, but his offenses are none that you (according to your blog) or I haven't spend some time around, eh...really? And I don't see any charges yet.
The only thing worse than hypocrisy is self-righteous hypocrisy. And to be clear, I'm only accusing the Toronto meda of this, not anyone reading or commenting.
Your alternate scenario would most likely inspire a CBC hagiography , the reverential celebration of a leftist-progressive-cult .
Rob Ford is a liar, a hypocrite, and an undignified, uneducated buffoon. Anyone who would support his, or God forbid, vote for him again should march over to a mirror right now and slap themselves in the face.
The fact that the Toronto Star is a skewed, clearly biased news organization and that our other politicians are less than models of perfection IN NO WAY ameliorates the fact that Rob Ford is an embarrassing mess whose so-called policies are based on sound bytes and taglines with no substance and no facts or figures to support them.
I understand how "embarrassing" Rob Ford is for "progressive" people like you, Evye. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you go to the mirror and slap yourself in the face every morning, just for the humiliation of living in a city where Rob Ford is mayor.
However, there are indeed a number of facts, figures and accomplishments to his credit. The privatization of garbage pick-up west of Yonge has both saved millions and the service is vastly better - the streets are no longer strewn with garbage, slime and gunk on garbage day, the way it was when CUPE workers were doing it. Speaking of CUPE, the contract Ford negotiated them was the most reasonable one the City has been able to get with them in living memory, and NO ONE thinks that could have happened if they didn't realize how tough Ford was prepared to get if the negotiations had gone sour. You may hate the Scarborough subway idea, but it WAS a campaign promise of Ford's and against all odds, he managed to get it funded as well as his keeping his promise to eliminate the vehicle registration tax.
The list goes on, but please don't let these facts get in the way of your indignation.
I understand how "embarrassing" Rob Ford is for "progressive" people like you, Evye. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you go to the mirror and slap yourself in the face every morning, just for the humiliation of living in a city where Rob Ford is mayor.
However, there are indeed a number of facts, figures and accomplishments to his credit. The privatization of garbage pick-up west of Yonge has both saved millions and the service is vastly better - the streets are no longer strewn with garbage, slime and gunk on garbage day, the way it was when CUPE workers were doing it. Speaking of CUPE, the contract Ford negotiated with them was the most reasonable one the City has been able to get with them in living memory, and NO ONE thinks that could have happened if they didn't realize how tough Ford was prepared to get if the negotiations had gone sour. You may hate the Scarborough subway idea, but it WAS a campaign promise of Ford's and against all odds, he managed to get it funded as well as his keeping his promise to eliminate the vehicle registration tax.
The list goes on, but please don't let these facts get in the way of your indignation.
I'm not a Canadian, so I have no stake in this debate, which, I feel, renders me both ill-informed and unbiased.
Rob Ford is a disgrace. How can you have a man actively breaking the law as the mayor of a major city? Why is it acceptable in Ford and not in Harper? The police SHOULD follow him, and arrest him, as they would any other citizen. The city legislature should fire him, in the same way that they would fire anyone who brings his office into disrepute. At the very least, the man should take a break at some place where he can get dry.
How you can have a man who is an abusive drunk as a mayor, would itself be a pertinent question, even without the criminality and the association with criminals. To be an alcoholic is one thing. But this guy is not poor old Boris Yeltsin. He's not merely stuck with a quiet problem, or a rather high spirited fellow. He's acting disgracefully in public and he takes illegal drugs .
So, yes, the whole world IS laughing at Toronto.
The main lesson I get from this article is that Canadian politics, at least at the city level, are apparently hopelessly corrupt. And that Canadians are too politically tribal to stand up against it. It all makes the cops in Continuum seem unproblematic in comparison.
I'll agree with one thing, you are ill-informed. If drug use is the measure by which politicians should be arrested, then there wouldn't be too many out of jail, and that includes a number of US Presidents, including the sitting one, who has a lower approval rating than Toronto's mayor.
If Rob Ford's personal behavior offends you so deeply, then you shouldn't invite him over for dinner. But as far as his role as a public servant goes, he is more dedicated, as well as forthright about his intentions than any of the alternatives.
And if you can live in another country and manage to get as worked up over Rob Ford as you have, seriously, you need to get a life.
So much to respond to...
I love the fact that Hizzoner denied being soused in pubic until it could be used to explain away his use of crack.
Then, less than 8 weeks after giving the public a "100% guarantee" that he'll lay off the fucking stupid juice, he shows up hammered at the Steak Queen sounding like he's auditioning for the fucking Wailers.
In what world is that NOT news? Shouldn't it get at least as much play as his contrived "come to Jesus" moment did, or do you just want the media biased in your favour?
That leads to the insipid "private time" assertion.
Does a chief magistrate actually have "private time?" What if there was a public emergency, such as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster whilst Our Boy Robbie was stunted with cocaine, booze and well above his usual level of stupidity? The mayor is always, as they say, "on call."
I'll accept DCD's point about his and my fitness for office as far as it goes, which is to say, not very. He did run and get elected. We didn't. And it's not like Ford got drafted. As a matter of fact, he said that he'd only run if John Tory didn't in 2010.
That's where this deflection game veers sharply into the Land of the Retarded.
The thing about George Smitherman's and Barack Obama's drug use is that both happened well before they took office. In Obama's case, he was in high school, and Smitherman was running a Big Gay Camera Shop.
As I remember it, there was no shortage of conservative complaints about their "fitness to serve" from folks who can't enough of a mayor who more closely resembles Biggie Smalls than David Crombie.
Ford is smoking crack with gangbangers IN OFFICE. And he may very well be using his office to threaten said gangbangers through other criminal associates.
More importantly, Smitherman and Obama admitted to their "failings" up front and Ford lied about them until the cops had him by the balls. Should Blair have enabled Ford's lie until after an election, when the public would have learned about it during a trial?
Sure, Crackhead Rob privatized garbage collection west of Yonge (although I live well east of the line and haven't noticed "the streets are no longer strewn with garbage, slime and gunk") and he put the boots to the unions. But he did those things in his first six months in office.
His inability to play well with others in a weak mayoral system destroyed his ability to govern well before his "personal" follies were uncovered.
If you want a strong mayor system, Ford set that back a generation. No provincial government in its right mind is going to amend the City of Toronto Act that way anytime soon. And we have Rob Ford to thank for that. Piss and moan all you want about City Council and the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals, but they got a lot more votes that Hizzoner did.
As for CBinTH, he or she is honest enough to maintain the traditional conservative position on drug users and lawbreakers in office.
And to suggest that he or she shouldn't comment on foreign politics is more than a little hypocritical, given how much you, I and nearly all of your commenters do the same. For example, you'd be equally disqualified to comment on Obamacare or the Middle East.
OK, Skippy, we've seen your laundry list before, but it's still off-topic.
I'm not married to the conservative position on anything, nor have I ever been, so the drug use is something I will use for making fun of people, but as long as he can do the job, I don't really care. However, as far as the job goes, I'm happier, crack and all, with Rob than with any of the other bozos waiting in the wings.
I've always said I don't care if Ford walks into Council with a lit joint in his mouth and a needle in his arm as long as he holds back the reckless spending of the Perks, Carrolls and Mihevics.
But I've too digressed, because the point really is the double standard the media uses when dealing with Ford, or conservatives in general. You raise an interesting point about Obama's drug use being in high school. It actually went well into college and quite probably well past that, and likely well past the point that the Globe and Mail devoted a year of investigation and massive ink into completely unproven drug-related allegations about Doug Ford that supposedly happened decades ago.
Or let's leave the Fords out of this altogether for a moment. What about the media outrage over Harper including, in his Israel entourage, a Christian Minister who takes the completely mainstream Christian position that homosexuality is a sin.
Did you see anything like that indignation from the same mainstream media outlets when Prince Bonehead Trudeau decided to be the keynote speaker to an auditorium fill of Imams and other Muslims who advocate KILLING homosexuals?
Naw, they thought that was fabulous.
I actually think that a lazy media has played right into Ford Nation's hands by focusing on your boy's crackheadery and boozy fuck-upery and not nearly enough on his associations with the Dixon City Bloods and Sandro Lisi.I also think you prefer that way by not mentioning either once in the body of a post.
Having said that, our positions on said crackheadery or thug huggery aren't half as important as our elected Maximum Leader's. He's spoken volumes on that prior to his current troubles and that reveals a hypocrisy far more craven than even the cocksucker media's.
Maybe you've heard something that I haven't about Obama's drug use going "well beyond" high school than I have, perhaps from D'Nesh D'Souza. But I doubt that it extends to his time in office.
You're being too cute by half again in not explaining for the folks what the Globe accused Councilor Dougie of, which is drug dealing, not drug using. And so far as I'm aware, Jack Layton, George Smitherman or Barack Obama have had that charge levied against them and I'm reasonably sure that all of them would have sued if it were.
As for positions on Canadian foreign policy by various leaders, I'm not sure how you got there, but there are few things as meaningless as Canadian foreign policy.
There's something about Rob Ford that makes some otherwise rational people (to say nothing of the perpetually irrational ones) who hate him go completely off the rails, which is one of the reasons those of us who like him want him around.
I don't think it's really reasonable to expect me to dredge up every aspect of Ford's history in a blog post that's trying to make a particular point. Nor is it reasonable to expect me to make both sides of an argument. There are other people who are very happy to take the other side, as you've been Skippy.
If you're trying to get me to concede that Ford has douchebag friends, yes, I will concede that.
So does Barack Obama, who has a convicted terrorist pal (Bill Ayers) and other assorted low-lifes in his circle. Sure it's convenient to use such people to try to tarnish someone, and all sides of the political spectrum do that.
But if Trainspotting taught us anything, other than 'don't do smack,' it's that we all have some scumbag who somehow or another is a part of our life, but that isn't what defines us.
And if that is a big concern, you might want to check the people and organizations in Olivia Chow's circle, because some of them are real turds and they would effectively be controlling city policy if she were to become mayor.
Post a Comment