Best evidence against Rob Ford is video of Rob Ford
Rob Ford in action after a Toronto City Council meeting. Photo: Youtube screen capture.
Poor Rob Ford. The Toronto mayor can’t get no respect, not in Canada and not in the United States after comedian Jon Stewart eviscerated him on Tuesday’s The Daily Show.
I have to admit, it never gets old watching Ford walk into the lens of a TV camera. Here he comes, lumbering toward the camera, looking up and – Pow! – right between the eyes.
Ed. – Watch the Stewart clip at the end of this story.
Stewart played the clip over and over because, well, who wouldn’t? You couldn’t script that scene.
Then there’s the clip of Ford catching a football and awkwardly falling on his face at what appears to be an Argonauts game. Stewart showed that clip, too, to much hilarity.
I get it. The mayor’s pratfalls are pretty funny. The guy’s obese and top-heavy, so he tips over easy and he’s ungainly.
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But laughing at the fat kid is mean-spirited and kind of un-Canadian. Are we really that spiteful? Sure, we expect an American like Stewart to mock Ford, but Rick Mercer wouldn’t stoop that low, right?
And yesterday Ford lost one of his life’s passions when the Don Bosco Catholic school of Etobicoke fired him as the head coach of its football team. School board authorities say the termination had nothing to do with recent reports of a video showing Ford smoking crack with drug dealers.
“This decision was based on what is best for our students, our school and the Don Bosco community,” said Bruce Rodrigues, the director of education.
Yeah, fat chance. (Oops, sorry for the pun)
Thanks to Stewart and the attention of the Canadian media, Ford’s personal and professional life is unravelling in public at warp speed and it’s not a pretty sight. The Mayor has refused to address the issue. Doug, also a GTA councillor, says he has been assured the crack smoking video is not credible and blames the media, particularly Rob Ford’s old nemesis The Star, for his brother’s problems.
One gets the feeling that more revelations are just around the corner. Judging by what’s come before, it promises to be ugly.
At this point, I’m feeling a tiny bit sorry for poor Rob Ford. He wouldn’t be the first hard working, public-spirited politician ruined because of a personal indiscretion or six.
Jesus said he who is without sin cast the first stone. Might even Rob Ford be worthy of redemption?
I spent some time on Youtube searching for the answer.
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How about the clip from Stewart’s show in which Ford yammers on in City Council chambers about the “Orientals?”
“Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines…The Oriental people, they’re slowly taking over.” How very un-politically correct of the mayor. The Orientals are taking over? Seriously?
Then there was the media scrum in which a reporter, quietly under his breath, called Ford an “asshole.” Ford went ballistic, chased the guy down a hallway, down the stairs and out into the parking lot, all the while screaming at him.
Or how about his ridiculous outbursts in Council? Or his reaction to Mary Walsh and her little “ambush” in the name of comedy outside his home for This Hour Has 22 Minutes?
You get the picture. And there are a lot of them on Youtube.
I’ve never met Rob Ford, but the video evidence that he’s a nasty bit of work is fairly compelling. My impression is that he’s a blowhard and a bully. Not someone I’d care to break bread with or share a pint at the local pub.
I didn’t arrive at my conclusion after reading Rob Ford screeds in The Star or some other “liberal” media. I watched him in action, listened to his words, the aggressive, bullying tone of voice. That was the most damning evidence available.
As Beacon columnist Bruce Stewart points out in today’s column, Ford has lost the moral authority to be mayor of Canada’s largest city.
Maybe he lost his moral authority because he’s a jerk.
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