A Final Word On Rob Ford

I have resisted writing anything on the death of Rob Ford. I am -- perhaps -- the least objective commentator on the late former mayor of Toronto. But, last week, Rick Salutin wrote a fair assessment of the man and his followers:

Terms used to describe Ford Nation include ordinary Canadians and average guys. But that’s statistically inaccurate and something else is implied: what once were called commoners, plebs, masses; they’re who Ford connected with. He never condescended to them, he was incapable of that. He felt too far down the pole himself, socially and, it seems, in his family, where he was youngest and least smart. He made a virtue of that by not looking down on others.

The elites in the United States have been condescending to ordinary folks for decades, and they have produced Donald Trump -- who sounds like Ford on steroids:

Trump is a similar figure but so different. Trump condescends to everyone, even if he too is heavy with neediness. But people at his rallies can’t identify with him: he affects such superiority. He floats (or flies) far above them. He gives crap to the people who condescend to them and they love him, or at least pay him homage, for it. But it’s not the love his Nation bore Ford, who’d never have waxed on about his own personal beauty or brilliance, or having one of the best brains I’ve ever seen etc.

You’d never find Trump alone in a fast food place, blasted out of his skull, doing island accents. And you’d never hear Trump say he must’ve tried crack “in one of my drunken stupors.” That shows far more self-awareness, even irony, than Trump ever has. Give the edge to Rob Ford there. In fact when it comes to right-wing populist demagogues, I’ll take ours, may he rest in peace, any day.

In the end, everything caught up with Ford -- the bombast, the crack, the erratic judgement, the intemperate lifestyle. There are no signs that Trump will meet the same fate.

image: huffingtonpost.ca

The Circus May Soon Be Over.

 

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Since emerging from rehab, Rob Ford has worked very hard to control his message. At his first news conference, he spoke to a select group of reporters. But that tactic hasn't worked. Reports are now emerging of Ford's time in rehab. Kevin Donovan writes in the Toronto Star that:

Mayor Rob Ford pushed and scuffled with fellow rehab residents and was so verbally abusive that he was kicked out of his group therapy program, according to people who have knowledge of his two month stay at GreeneStone .

These accounts of what one person referred to as “destructive behaviour” stands in stark contrast to Ford’s recent public statements that he had a healthy experience and takes his recovery seriously.

“Ford broke things, got into fights with other residents,” said one source with knowledge of the mayor’s time in rehab at the resort-turned-drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in Muskoka.

“Ford stopped people from sharing their stories, which is key to a successful rehab experience,” said another source. “Other residents felt intimidated. They felt he was a bully. He was always saying he did not belong there.” 

Whether at City Hall or in the pastoral Muskokas, the same pattern of behaviour was on display. And there are suggestions that Ford didn't get the monkey off his back:

Management was concerned Ford continued to use drugs or alcohol during his time in rehab. The Star was unable to determine if Ford abused any substances during his two month stint.

GreeneStone’s wooded property has a well known “nature walk” and a concern of staff is that some residents meet their drug dealers or people providing alcohol at the far end of the walk.

Police were called at least once to deal with an incident at GreeneStone during Ford’s time. It’s not known if the police visit was related to Ford. The OPP, which patrols the area, said that any information about police calls to GreeneStone could only be obtained by making a freedom of information request, a process that takes months. 

Ford has lost control at City Hall. And, these days, he is dogged by shirtless protesters wherever he goes. Torontonians know their man, despite his attempts to put on a new face -- or at least a new suit.  They are deciding they can get along without him.

The circus may soon be over.

He's Not New and Improved

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Rob Ford is a little thinner. But, in the interviews he did last week, you could be forgiven for thinking that rehab hasn't really had much effect. Jim Coyle writes in the Toronto Star:

Experienced hands in recovery listen carefully for hints that newbies are harbouring old, self-destructive attitudes or aren't committed to new ways of living. There were lots of alarms in what Ford had to say before his team abruptly scrapped a planned series of one-on-ones with media outlets.

To what we might call “recovery ears,” the interviews Ford did and his homecoming speech suggested he has a lot of getting honest with himself yet to do. In his comments, there was continued rationalizing, self-pity, grandiosity — common traits of the addict and attitudes that sabotage recovery.

When Ford said he “never, ever” intended to do the abusive and appalling things he did, he was rationalizing, minimizing his culpability — seeking to be judged on his good intentions rather than his hateful actions.

When he said he wouldn't wish his suffering on his worst enemy, he was wallowing in self-pity, casting himself as the chief victim in the affair. Self-pity is a fast lane to relapse in addicts.

When he said he has a “phenomenal” record as mayor, that he's “the best mayor” Toronto has had and will “never, ever” change, he showed both grandiosity and close-mindedness. These are also attitudes unlovely among the unafflicted but lethal to addicts.

Ford may look a little better. But he doesn't sound as if he has recovered. Which leads to the question, "Why would Torontoians elect the same old Rob Ford?

He's not new and improved.  

He Won't Change

Yesterday, Rob Ford announced that he would not attend World Pride in Toronto because "I'm not going to change the way I am." Judging from his continuing escapades, it would seem that the public can take that statement to the bank.

And, after reading Robin Doolittle's book Crazy Town, Tasha Kheiriddin writes that Ford is anything but mayoral:

The Fords — according to Doolittle — live in a world of thugs and drugs. From high school on, the four Ford siblings — Kathy, Randy, Doug and Rob — were enmeshed in the drug culture in various ways, as users and (allegedly) in the case of Doug, as a seller. Kathy’s journey led her to being shot in the face, Randy’s to involvement in a kidnapping. Rob enjoyed his weed as a teenager, prescription pills as an adult, and crack cocaine after the death of his father.

Kheirddin admits that Ford's substance abuse problems might cause some to feel sympathy for him:

But the association with criminals should not. The drug-addled friendships nurtured in the plaza at the end of the Fords’ leafy childhood street haunt the family to this day. And they cannot be excused because of the Fords’ good works over the years. No matter how much football you coach, if you’re doing crack, you are contributing to the same criminal behaviour you claim to want to eradicate.

Ford argues that this is all part of his private life and should be out of bounds in any public discussion. But now he is being sued by his former brother-in-law for allegedly arranging a jailhouse beating. And his legal problems keep coming. On the weekend, he was ticketed for j-walking while under the influence.

Ford is right. He won't change. And if Torontoians are smart, they won't re-elect him.

Blatant Hypocrisy

Martin Regg Cohn calls Rob Ford's bluster, after his meeting with Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, exactly what  it is -- blatant hypocrisy.  And Cohn provides a little historical context:

Once upon a government, when the Mike Harris Tories downloaded social services upon Toronto (with Rob Ford’s father, Douglas, serving faithfully as a backbench MPP), the cash-strapped city got temporary compensation. After 2003, when the Dalton McGuinty Liberals started uploading those services back, it was always understood the financial transfers weren’t forever.

Now that Toronto is coming out ahead financially, it’s time to wind down the compensation, Sousa says. Not so, counters Ford, who wants the gravy to keep flowing.

Ford barged into office railing against gravy trains, then proceeded to cut taxes and costs. But, while Ford and his brother fume at the Liberals, they know that Tim Hudak would have delivered the same message:

The mayor is being a predictably apoplectic hypocrite: He knows that today’s Tory opposition — the very party his father Douglas once served, and that his big brother Doug (now a councillor) aspires to join in the next provincial election — would cease uploading municipal services, burdening Toronto’s finances far more.

Yet Ford persists with his posturing, demanding an extra helping of gravy because he is addicted to the substance. It allows him to live in a hallucinatory world where he can cut local taxes and then demand, with a straight face, that Queen’s Park make up the difference.

Like so many conservatives these days, Ford rails against gravy trains, while he insists that he has a ticket to ride.

The man -- in so many ways -- isn't who he says he is.

Toronto Has Been Forded

Christie Blatchford is ecstatic that Rob Ford won his appeal and will remain in the mayor's chair. She has nothing but contempt for Clayton Ruby, who took on the case against Ford pro bono. She has been inspired by:

The sight of lawyer Clay Ruby turning his back on a television camera, a feat that previously would have been considered a physical impossibility for the un-shy and, let me be frank, unctuous defender of correct thinking and all proper causes.

For Blatchford, the case against Ford was always an improper cause. It was always a tempest in a teapot, which boiled down to a little more than $3000. Ford's judgment was never an issue. His recognition that, in the end, all he had was one vote -- and getting anything done required the kind of people skills that Ford clearly does not possess -- was never a problem.

And, when Ford trumpeted yesterday that he intended to be around for another six years, Blatchford was close to nirvana:

Humility, however, is not the strong suit of this scrappy mayor, as was evident in his modest proclamation that his administration was doing “a great job."

Despite describing the entire legal/court experience as “very, very humbling,” he wasn’t the slightest bit.

Ford is a successful politician. But he is not a gifted one. And, for Christie Blatchford, success is all that matters. Toronto has been forded.

Rob Ford And The Peter Principle

Christie Blatchford is furious. Yesterday a judge removed the man she voted for because, as she wrote last Friday, he was "authentic." In her mind, authenticity trumps an unjust law:

So, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been given the boot from office because an opportunistic citizen hired a smart and politically savvy lawyer who found a club of an arcane statute with which to tie the hands of a judge who was willing to play ball.

That’s the short and dirty version of the bombshell that has dropped.

The truth is that, if Ford had declined to vote on the resolution which declared he did not have to return less than $3200 to his donors, he would not have been involved in a conflict of interest. If he had repaid what amounted to a pittance, the problem would have gone away. Ironically, in her defence of Ford, Blatchford hints at the real problem. Ford told the council:

And if it wasn’t for this foundation, these kids would not have had a chance. And then to ask that I pay it out of my own pocket personally, there is just, there is no sense to this. The money is gone; the money has been spent on football equipment.

Blatchford writes, "I’d argue that it’s just as reasonable to interpret that as the sputtering and clumsy protest of a man who was bewildered how doing something good had turned so bad."

Precisely. Ford is a blundering man who has yet more legal battles to fight because he is ignorant of the machinery of municipal government. He is the latest example of the Peter Principle. He's simply out of his depth. Tonight his football team is playing for the city championship. If he had stuck to coaching football, he would have been quite successful. As a mayor, he's a disaster.

A Political Implosion In Slow Motion

Royson James writes in today's Toronto Star that mayor Rob Ford is beyond redemption:

At some point, Mayor Rob Ford’s mayoralty will collapse under the weight of his own political folly.

Not today — despite reports the mayor uses his city-paid staff, cars and cellphones to administer elements of the youth football teams he coaches.

Not tomorrow — even as more and more allies back away from what has become a radioactive mayoralty. 

A week after being in court and arguing that using City Hall letterhead to raise money for his football foundation was an oversight, not a conflict of interest, came the news that Ford left an executive committee meeting five hours early, and that he uses city staff to help run that foundation. Hardly an oversight.

But, more importantly, the rules for municipal government in Ontario give each mayor one vote. To get anything done, a mayor has to build coalitions. Ford is supremely unsuited for that task. James writes:

Anyone who has dispassionately examined the mayor knows this: He doesn’t care what anybody thinks. He has a nose for trouble. He thumbs his nose at the world. And he is still that rich kid from north Etobicoke who gets away with bullying those around him, because he can.

Drunk at a hockey game, he abused fans, lied about it, and then sheepishly apologized when found out.

He was busted for possession and caught drinking while driving in Florida. He lied about it when the Toronto Sun confronted him. But the voters forgave him and made him mayor.

As mayor, he is caught driving and using his phone, but is not sorry at all, ignoring the danger.

He is caught reading city documents while driving — and rebuffs every effort from staff and the police to get him a chauffeur.

Like his political ally, the Prime Minister, Ford has no intention of working with anyone. In politics, that spells doom.

The Icredible Shrinking Mayor

A cautionary tale is unfolding in the city of Toronto.Yesterday, for the second time in recent memory, Toronto City Council told Mayor Rob Ford to take a walk down to the bottom of John Street and jump in the lake. Ford's story is about more than his obsession with subways. It's about a man who suffers from the delusion that, because he possesses what Teddy Roosevelt called a "bully pulpit," he also has the right to be a political bully.

That delusion is underscored by the fact that the man who vowed to cut taxes with a vengeance was willing to impose a tax increase to get his subways.The irony is as rich as the proclamation of the long dead despot in Shelley's poem: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Toronto's library workers have just gone on strike. The city's inside workers are now poised to walk out, too. But Ford is in no mood to compromise, either with council or the city's work force. Like Ozymandias, he expects all to bow before him.

Ford recently -- to great fanfare -- went on a crash diet. At last report his weight loss had stalled. Now,  everything else at city hall is beginning to crash. There are obvious lessons for other politicians here. One is that, when "we the people" get organized, all hell can break loose. It will be interesting to see who is paying attention.

Rule By The Limited

Today is High Noon for Gary Webster. Christopher Hume writes in the Toronto Star that:

Already, [Mayor Rob] Ford has inflicted serious damage on the city, painful, but none of it fatal. However, if a group of his designated cronies actually does fire Toronto Transit Commission chief general manager Gary Webster Tuesday afternoon as expected, it will be time to start worrying about the future of things.

Ford and his brother -- who claims that the TTC needs "an enema" -- have never had a sense of how things work in a democracy. Hume writes:

Ford’s actions demonstrate a degree of disrespect that raises the question of his ability to lead. Governance itself doesn’t care about outcomes; only how they are reached. That’s why process matters, especially in a democracy, which by its nature, is divided and fractious.

An apostle of the New Philistinism, Ford represents the revenge of those who are guided by their guts, instead of their heads. They are apostles of Ignorance.Their politics stretch well beyond city hall. Vic Toews treated us to more of the same last week in Ottawa. Claiming to believe in limited government, they insist that power be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Ford and Toews offer stark proof that today's apostles of limited government are people of limited talent and limited vision.

Ford And Facts

Word on the street is that Gary Webster is about to lose his job. His mistake was to cross mayor Rob Ford. Ford is smarting, after city council scuttled his plan to expand Toronto's subway. Royson James writes in the Toronto Star:

Denzil Minnan-Wong. Cesar Palacio. Norm Kelly. Frank Di Giorgio. Vincent Crisanti. Remember their names for induction in the transit hall of shame.

The querulous quintet — censorious and calculating city councillors — have called a special meeting of the Toronto Transit Commission on Tuesday to knife the chief general manager, Gary Webster.

For more than a year, Mayor Rob Ford has schemed to get Webster out of the way. Webster’s sin? He spoke truth to power. He told Ford he could not support the mayor’s subway plan because it did not make sense any more.

Ford wanted to expand the subway east, along Shepard Avenue to Scarborough. He asked Webster to prepare a study on the costs and benefits of the project. Webster did just that, and reported that the Sheppard extension did not make economic sense:

Ridership along Sheppard is less than a third of projections. Job growth at the North York and Scarborough terminuses are abysmal. Projections had called for 93,400 jobs in North York centre and 65,000 in Scarborough Centre by 2006. In fact, the combined total for both centres is fewer than 44,000.

Ford ordered that the report be mothballed. But Karen Stintz, the chair of the TTC, made the report public; and council ditched Ford's subway plan in favour of an LRT line, which would run above ground and cost less to construct. Ford was furious. He can't fire Stintz; but his allies have enough votes to fire Webster.

This weekend, at a meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Canadian journalists took the Harper government to task for muzzling government scientists. Ford has been a vocal ally of Prime Minister Harper. Like the prime minister, he is allergic to facts. And, like the prime minister, he's a very vindictive fellow.

Big Man, Little Boy

We certainly are raising a peculiar crop of leaders these days. Since he was elected, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has frozen out the Toronto Star. He has told his staff that they are to have no dealings with the paper -- including  issuing press releases to the largest daily in the country. His anger at the Star stems from an article the the paper published while Ford was running for mayor.

John Honderich writes this morning that:

There is no purpose served in rehashing the details. However, the Star has always stood by the story, noting it was carefully checked by our lawyer before publication.

Candidate Ford was furious and filed an immediate notice of libel, which is entirely and appropriately his prerogative. But he never followed up, as required, and his suit has now lapsed.

Mayor Ford has repeatedly said his freeze will stay in place until the Star runs an apology above the fold on page 1. As he recently told reporter Daniel Dale, “I don’t talk to the Star till you guys apologize. You guys (are) liars.”

Ford has every right to be furious. And he has every right to take legal action. The fact that he has let the case slide suggests the mayor knows his complaint won't survive legal scrutiny. And, if he does not want to personally talk to Star reporters, he can exercise that option. But he has gone farther than that. Honderich reports that:

The mayor’s staff was holding a briefing on arts funding and other members of the city hall press gallery were told about it privately. In this case, they were also specifically asked not to tell the Star about it. In other words, the mayor’s staff was trying to use other journalists to enforce its freeze. Thankfully, they did not go along.

Ford is the big kid who insists on bringing his own ball to the game; and -- when he doesn't get his way -- he picks it up and goes home. As I have written before in this space, the children are in charge. And, like most children, they are going to leave it to others to clean up the mess they create.