Captain Obvious, reporting for Maisonneuve;
As Doug slyly pointed out in his Global interview, lots of journalists have done cocaine. Some do it casually but regularly, at parties. This might affect their ability to do their socially important job of reporting the news; cocaine is addictive and impairs the user’s sound judgment. But Rob Ford allegedly did crack–the grotesque sibling of powder cocaine, containing baking soda and smoked out of a glass pipe. How low.
Nor does Rob’s drinking problem conform to genteel conventions. Rob doesn’t overdo it with the pre-dinner martinis and then down a couple bottles of cabernet sauvignon before desert, like a John Cheever character. No, instead, we might imagine him buying mickeys of Russian Prince vodka and drinking them when he’s alone. (According to a story in the Toronto Star, staffers were concerned about his drinking but rarely saw him drinking.) Would this behavior shock the city’s sensibilities just as much if he added a little vermouth?
Wells tweet should read “I hope there is something to this…”
I am continually amazed at the hyp0ocracy and cognitive dissonance of the progressive lame stream media in the world today, but am aware that this has been trained into them by the Marxist professors at the journalistic colleges. Where the were once trained to be reporters, they are now trained to be creative writers and spin doctors.
I really thought (assumed) that was tongue in cheek….but Wells and others are impressed?
Oh my…
What am I missing here?
That’s an elitist dog whistle for “revoltingly gauche nouveau riche scum.”
The CBC coverage of this slander and their perpetuation of the slandering, yet another reason to defund them.
Journalistic standard??
I love the media’s logic in this slander, so if I now claim I have a vid of a media figure raping what appears to be small children, the media must now attack their buddy,with out being able to verify the tape, just the way they insist Ford must respond to their ugly insinuations.
I am glad to be thousand of km from Toronto, if this is what passes for civil discourse in that city.
Even a public figure should be able to successfully sue in the face of press behaviour this foul.
Or better yet, a Human Rights Tribunal. Every Canadian has the right to use the Kangaroo courts in cases of Hate Speech and media bullying.
Probably would be theatre as good as Ezra Levant sinking the Alberta HR nazi.
What do you expect from a bunch of rich kids anyways.. Doctors, lawyers, Journalists and movie stars.. All drink from the same cup, handed to them by their rich parents..
When the media began its pile on Mayor Rob Ford I thought they were being nasty. When they accused Mayor Ford of smoking crack I thought they were malicious. When they began to accuse Mayor Ford of causing the death of the guy with the ‘video’ I realized they were truly EVIL. Forget about the young lady whose online naked videos led to her suicide. What the media is putting Mayor Ford through is far worse.
Well the Liberals want their crown jewel back (Toronto), because without it Trudeau will be dead in the water in the next election.. So the Star, Globe and CBC (all liberal rags)are doing everything they can to run off / intimidate the Ford brothers..
They have done a little to well running things it seems..
I think its a hate crime myself..
As satire, this column hits the mark, but there’s far more to it. Rob Ford has been a target of the liberal media and opposition politicians since he was elected as mayor. (Sarah Palin would relate, I’m sure.) Conservatives who are successful are the punching bags of the left. Who in their right minds would credit GAWKER and the Toronto Star with even a semblance of integrity? Gawker and the Toronto Star are the REAL icons of low class.
some of observations from afar;
Ford Bros are not unknown in T.O. Rob got elected mayor, after serving on council in Etobicoke (coke, eh!)
Ford family has comfortable background, maybe rich, to some. Its all relative. History of drug issues with other family members.
Escalade is the ride preferred by larger-sized men. Lots of Escalades in Edmonton.
Ford Bros are the antithesis of T.O. as “world-class”, There’s a double entendre in there somewhere.
Doug Ford donates his council salary to charity.
Ya gotta wonder why people do public service, if they don’t “toe the line”.
They have followed and hounded this man way beyond what should be considered legally acceptable. If Rob Ford was up to anything (I mean anything)they would have found it and reported it.. But they cant..
So they drum up their own little progressive swarming, based on their hate for the man and his successful policies..
This is a free press?
GAWKER
Update: The Toronto Star, whose reporters have also seen the video, say that it’s Justin Trudeau—Pierre’s son and the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada—and not Pierre getting called a “faggot.” It’s hard to keep all these Canadians apart. The Star also has Ford himself, and not the voice off-screen, making the “faggot” remark, though that’s not how I remember it.
gawker.com/for-sale-a-video-of-toronto-mayor-rob-ford-smoking-cra-507736569
I cannot contact Rob Ford directly. But he realizes I’m sure he is hounded because he’s not pretty, and is a straight shooter.
The chattering class HATES that.
I can empathize. There’s lots of tunnel-visioned assholes out there, some have clout.
But as he keeps his head high, and stays cool he will gain respect…… I mean MORE respect.
What do “their opinions mean anyway?
“If you can keep your head while those around you….”
I sorta kinda hope that the Globe and Torstar crew are right about Ford being a psychopathic alcoholic homicidal drug addict. The final act doesn’t look good for journalists in that story.
The Ford brothers and many of the working class employees of
private industry have a lot more in common than you might think.
The left have tossed such workers under the bus as a waste of
their precious time and would be pleased if the Fords were under
there as well.
My daughter sent me this! She’s no fan of the Fords but she’s beginning to see that there’s another side to this “story.”
I’ve posted this before, an article in Toronto Life, of all places, pointing out all of the positive things the Ford administration has been able to accomplish for Toronto taxpayers, rightly putting, BTW, pretty boy former Mayor Miller in a very bad light.
Philip Preville: A sober assessment of Rob Ford’s shining achievements: Ignore, for a moment, all the sideshow antics that have hijacked his mayoralty. Rob Ford has made some big changes at city hall that we’ll all feel, in a good way, long after he’s gone.
http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2013/02/22/the-flip-side-of-ford-philip-preville/
I totally agree, EBD. When I read that paragraph I thought, “Hmmm, damning the Fords with feint praise, a back-handed compliment: WHACK.”
I live in Toronto and I spit in the direction of the Toronto “elite,” who are actually very little, very ugly, very overrated jerks. (It’s too early in the morning and I’m in too much of a rush to do them proper justice …)
This is music to my ears. If you can judge a man by his friends, you can judge him by his enemies as well – and Mr. Ford…you have EXCELLENT taste in enemies. The babbling of these leftist scum is of less import than the mud on our shoes.
If you are enraging and offending idiots like them – you are doing something right!
I don’t give a damn about Toronto or Ontario politics or even the majority of what passes for news in old Canada. The action/reactions of the media is always predictable but still shocking. Of course there’s a class element to the Ford mystery. That the line between reporting and analyzing so immediately turns into an opportunity to speculate and humiliate confirms my worst opinion of the profession. And despite their protestations their attitude towards people they publicly humiliate by name extends to their condescending and disrespectful attitude those who vote against the media’s preferred candidates.
People who shop at Walmart , work with their hands and live in the suburbs and beyond are far less tacky than those whose attitude is summed up as “In general, people are stupid”. In the same way the US republicans cannot connect with women, the media has lost the ability to understand the people whose lifestyle and politics they reject and ridicule. This attitude gains neither voters nor customers. No wonder they hate the free market and personal choice.
Below is the letter I sent to the Toronto Star a few days ago. No reply. Sent copies to various journalists:
“I am concerned about the fact that the Toronto Star is engaged in a campaign of bullying a political officer, Rob Ford.
Bullying is a prime concern in our schools; we are all aware of the suicides of children exposed to bullying. Our schools and our media mount campaigns against bullying. We warn children not to taunt, belittle, make up unverified stories about others, name-call..and so on.
Yet the Toronto Star in its relentless attacks against Rob Ford is doing precisely that: bullying.
Its constant name-calling against his weight, his lack of ‘class’ are bullying. The Star’s relentless innuendoes – never proven – of being drunk, of misuse of official stationary (!); and now, this new attack based on a missing, unverified video held by drug dealers, can only be called: bullying. There is no other term for it. After all, none of these attacks are about city issues and concerns; they are all personal; they are all non-factual, pure innuendoes, all unverified and anecdotal. This is: bullying.
Why is bullying done by a newspaper and journalists considered praiseworthy, while the very same actions done by children – are a matter of great concern to school administrators and parents?
Why is the Toronto Star engaged, not in examining factual city issues and decisions about those issues, but is instead relentless in its personal attacks on someone else? Children and teenagers are very vulnerable to following ‘cool attacks’, and to think that ‘the Toronto Star is right in doing this’. They will copy the Star in their treatment of others.
How does it help our city and our children and our City Hall – when a newspaper, rather than dealing with issues, devotes itself to: bullying.”
Eric Andrew-Gee would -like- this to be about class I’m sure, but the reality is, its about money. City of Toronto spends probably two thirds of the tax money collected in Ontario, between one thing and another. A lot of that money goes to things like TTC ticket takers who make over $100k per year. It goes to “cultural organizations”. It goes to “artists”. It goes to “consultants”. Think “Lying Jackal” and “Lucy”, that’s who we’re talking about. There’s tons of guys like that.
Many of these people are buddies with bigwigs in the media biz. Again, the Lying Jackal is an example. He’s probably on the phone to CBC/CTV/Global/City every week stirring something up.
Ford ran on a platform of cutbacks, tax cuts and curbing of government excess. The above people, who are hounding Ford, LIVE on government excess. He’s threatening their paychecks. Effectively, too. The vast pool of money they bathe in is visibly shrinking around the edges. Small changes so far, but visible.
So they’re going to ax-murder the guy if its the last thing they do. That’s how they got where they are today, its how they roll.
In other news, the province strikes back with a brand new $$TWO BILLON$$ tax grab to pay for… Toronto transit. Adding 1% to the HST, adding a nickle per quart to gas tax, and adding twenty five cents annual tax to every single parking spot from Pickering to Stoney Creek.
So if you see all the parking spot lines suddenly vanish from parking lots all over the GTA and Hamilton, that’s what happened.
Media outrage at this obscene rip-off so far is… [crickets] … somewhat muted.
the video, it must be real – I saw it on the internet!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnT-ZI_zvdQ
Speking of the media. Last night? the CTV news reported that Robert Porter, a onetime Harper appointee, was arrested in Panama on corruption charges. Back the truck up. A Harper appointee? Sure to a CSIS committee but he is accused of profiting in the Liberal fed primordial corruption slime oozing in Quebec. How does one appoint a Quebecer, that isn’t corrupt, to any position? There are none.
Yeah, it is the class problem, i.e. the “lack of class”.
Our leaders are expected to be better than us – we don’t really want Joe Schmo in the next office to be running things as we’ve seen him at his finest already. So if Ford or anyone else in a power position behaves like one of the boys in the local pub, then we worry that he acts like that in all his endeavors.
In Calgary some 30 years ago, we had Ralph Klein, a former newspaper reporter, win the mayor’s position after the incumbent demonstrated his arrogance and dismissal of the citizenry’s concerns. What got Klein in was that he stood apart from the upper class attitude of entitlement. Once in office, he said strange things that were definitely non-PC and working class, and we both loved him for it and were embarrassed about it: he was, after all, as a mayor supposed to be better than us. His drinking was legendary, but he was a beer man, so that was at least something we could relate to.
He became the Premier of Alberta and held it for many years. His rough image improved, but his drinking did not, and became an issue. Eventually he admitted his alcoholism, went on the wagon …. and was re-accepted by Albertans for being a man as well as a Premier. But he abused alcohol, not drugs.
A generation later, Ford is caught doing drugs. Drugs are still taboo, but you are right: there are drugs and then there are drugs. A prescription drug problem, painkillers, could be seen like Klein’s alcoholism: there but by the grace of God go I. Crack, though, would be like the Premier drinking Cherry Jack from a brown paper bag under the spans of the Central Street bridge. No class, no pass.
The point is that cheap, nasty choices in one area of our lives are recognized as reflective of choices we make in other areas of our lives. If Ford seeks release in the pleasures of the addicted street prostitutes, you have to wonder about his values elsewhere.
Ford is an opportunist. He grabs what’s available. That is a very bad character flaw for anyone holding power and our/your money.
Alcohol is a drug, an addictive one to boot. Also the costliest to society.
Doug Proctor – could you provide evidence for your assertion that “Ford is caught doing drugs”.
[And that non-verified, hearsay video cannot, of course, be evidence precisely because it is hearsay.]
Could you provide evidence for your linking him to ‘addicted street prostitutes’?
Also, could you explain your conclusion that ‘Ford is an opportunist; he grabs what’s available”. Exactly what does this mean.
Thanks in advance.
It’s obvious that Ford does drugs. He was photographed with 2 young black guys. WTF? Did I say that? This whole thing is getting beyond stupid.
Oh, it’s a ‘class war’ alright.
And for now the Ivory-tower set and their Silver-Penned Press Pussies imagine themselves to be the movers and shakers.
But Ford doesn’t help himself, does he? You’ll rarely get run over by the train if you don’t lie down on the tracks.
scar >
“He was photographed with 2 young black guys.”
Excuse me?
Not very PC.
It would be PC to say, “Specially imported culturally diverse but disenfranchised drug dealers who simply aim to meet the needs of Liberal indulgences.”
The slime stream media are trying to destroy the electorate’s vote via contrived scandals, now the question is how do we the people take down the verminic media?
Proctor, you make your own case as to lack of class. This is Canada still, please put up some evidence or shut up.
Slander is easy,vile and the mark of a poser.
Or are you demonstrating the old joke; “Are you stupid or on crack?”
That’s a good comment. I think the article is interesting in a way, but it nevertheless twists itself into pretzels in trying to find an easy rationale for an inconvenient truth — that Mr. Ford was elected mayor by almost fifty percent of those who voted, in spite of an onslaught of media intervention against him, which attempted to excuse his opponent(s) from precisely the same things that that self-same media is accusing Mr. Ford of now.
I don’t know too much about English literature, but I am aware of a certain Josiah Bounderby, banker and self-made entrepreneur of, ironically (from both a Detroit and a Toronto perspective, incidentally), “Coketown”. Mr. Bounderby is a central character in Charles Dickens’s novel, “Hard Times”: according to Mr. Dickens, Mr. Bounderby does exactly, in generic terms, as Mr. Ford’s declaimers accuse the latter of doing now, including having a few secrets. Mr. Bounderby seems to me to have been overweight and to have had an “unsophisticated” way of presenting himself.
It’s quite sad to see that Toronto and its self-proclaimed critical authorities have not moved on, in any meaningful way, from Mr. Dickens’s 160-year-old normatives, circumstances or characturizations.
Great letter, ET.
We all know the answer to why the Maggot Media is allowed to bully and school kids aren’t: The Maggot Media are Leftards, pure and simple. If they don’t like you, out come the knives, and that’s because they’re special.
‘Last sentence should read: If they don’t like you, out come the knives, and that’s OK because they’re special.
Like your letter to the Star, ET (a very excellent letter, IMO with some astute observations and some very smart questions), I doubt you get an answer from the coward, Proctor. He has passed this way before; I suspect he is a troll and/or a dipper/liberano.
I wonder where the msm yappers were when one of Paul Martin’s ships was impounded for having bags of illegal drugs ‘slung over it’s deck’? Paulie II was PM at the time! Paulie II was gifted the Canadian Steamship Co. by the Power Corp outfit – I wonder why the press gang never ‘pressed’ for answers on that transaction or the question about the drugs? Further, was that gal in the jailhouse in Mexico (howling on TV about her jailhouse horrors and demanding help from Canada)involved? I read somewhere that she was Paul Martin II’s niece. Speaking of ‘class’, who could forget Paulie II banging away on a cheap guitar at the end of his last election campaign?
I have missed you here at SDA, ET, it is good to hear from you again.
Hey, I’m not a coward. I use my real name, after all. I just write and move on, don’t keep track.
The future has occurred and showed Ford as a druggie. Not that I can say I wasn’t, but I wasn’t in a position of responsibility and moral leadership – are we allowed to suggest that leadership is also about morality?
The attacks on me represent the moral relativism of our time, in which all flaws are personal and equal. Lying, cheating, breaking the law – we’ve all driven legally drunk or at least technically compromised, so Ford gets a pass. Rather than all of us deserve to be censured at times, everyone gets a get-out-of-jail-free card.
My largest point was that leadership is not just about technical skills but about providing the lead with confidence that the power they have handed over to another is being well received and well used. Ford has not given us that, on the contrary, he has given us the idea that he publicly behaves one way and privately, another. When we see that the face is determined by its purpose, not its form, we are justifiably concerned that we are not getting true goods at any time, that what is really going on is not what his Lordship says.
Do no mistake wandering off for cowardice. All those with enigmatic handles instead of their names might wonder about the confidence of their convictions in the public square. It is reasonable to hold elected – or paid, as in the case of the CEOs of public companies – to a higher level of accountability than the average joe. The screwups of the average joe impact only himself (and his family) in general; the screwups of the top joes impact us all.
Moral relativism is based on a liberal view of the nature of us all, that all of us try to be the best we can, to do well by others etc. The fact is that not all of us are so altruistically inclined. Ford may be just a personal screwup, but whatever he does requires an accountability greater than the ordinary person because his power and position involve inspiration: if such actions are deemed acceptable at the top, then worse is acceptable at the bottom (because there is less collateral damage at the bottom).
I’m shocked that this exchange happened back in May. Time moves on. I hope that the detractors from what I think was a very simple argument about the increased responsibilities of our leadership elite reconsider what I was writing about. We look up as we hand up our money, our authority and our hopes. We should receive the commitment to act in ways that comfort us in our acts as well as provide reasonable results. There is enough uncertainty in our lives, enough bad examples in our lives without our alleged masters contributing to it.