Today has been pretty slow thus far as compared to yesterday. Some interesting things did happen of course--Council stripped Mayor Ford of his committee appointment powers and his emergency management powers. Ford in response gave a speech about how he totally gets it and he'd do the same, except of course he has to support himself so instead he's going to challenge the maneuvers in court. He then decried the cost to the taxpayers of that court challenge--the one he's bringing himself. You can't make this stuff up.
Anyway from this point forward Norm Kelly is basically the acting mayor. By Monday, when motions to remove Ford's office budget, his ability to hire and fire staff, and his seat on the executive are passed, he'll literally just be a guy in Council called "Mayor" who can make his one vote on motions and not much else. So I hope he enjoys the title.
On Monday I'll have a big, long post detailing today's and Monday's council motions and what they mean and what I think of them and all that. Meantime it's been a banner week for one Robyn Doolittle, intrepid Toronto Star reporter who along with her colleague Kevin Donovan (not to mention
our old pals at Gawker) first brought us the crack story that has mushroomed into the amazing shit hurricane we've found ourselves within these past couple of weeks. She's also become the city's resident Ford expert, with a book deal already signed to tell the tale of our crack smoking chief magistrate's cracky ways. Crack. To thank her for what she's done, Queen Bathurst has decided to do what she, by dint of her position, can't. This past Wednesday she held a livechat with Star readers answering their questions about the Ford scandal. Some of the usual Ford Nation wingnuts came out of the woodwork. She was good enough to humour a few of them with reasonable answers (I actually reached out to her asking for some of the questions she refused to display and answer, presumably because they were too over the top. She never responded). Since I'm not constrained by corporate strictures regarding decency, courtesy, and any directive not to insult potential readers, I decided to take a few of my favourites and answer those questions to her, as her, in the way she would (or at least as I imagine I would if I were her) like to have answered them. I want to reiterate these are in her name but they're not actually written by her. Direct your hate mail to me.
So here we go with
Robyn Doolittle's LiveChat Revisited. Thanks for showing everyone who our mayor really is, Robyn.
Hey everyone! I'm just gonna pop my lunch in the microwave and we'll be starting this lunchtime chat in 3 minutes.
READER QUESTION: Many sitting councillors in Toronto have been charged with serious offenses. For example, Ana Bailao was charged with DUI last year. To most people, this is a more serious crime than personal drug usage. Why was there not a similar outcry? Why did The Star not report on it in the same way?
Are you high right now? You must be, to ask a question like that. First of all, you'd have to be less than bright to not realize by now that the outcry has a hell of a lot more to do with the mayor's conduct
surrounding his drug use than with the drug usage itself. Do you even read newspapers or just wait for livechats so you can parrot whatever 10 second soundbite you saw Doug Ford give on TV between episodes of Biggest Loser? Also, seriously, crack. Mayor smokes crack. Do I really need to explain to you why that's effed up? As to your actual question, we were all over that Ana Bailao shit. Here's like
three different stories that are just about the role her night of drinking played in a casino lobbyist scandal. I'd like to point out that I wrote the first two, which led to what happened in the third--a lobbyist being suspended for getting too cozy. That's because I'm awesome and you can't even be bothered to do your homework before interrogating me. Seriously, it's the internet, try using a search engine before you make accusations. Now go away.
READER QUESTION: (Today in council) Why didn't Denzil Minnan-Wong answer if he smoked marijauna? Obviously he hasn't if he's lecturing the mayor for drinking & smoking crack.
by Dougdale edited by The Star
Or, you know, he realizes that whether he's ever smoked pot or not is a fuck of a long way from "have you ever smoked crack while in the company of gangsters?" or "do you pay utility bills for a crackhouse you like to hang out at?" Seriously, dude. Why the fudge would he answer a question like that and open himself up to false equivalency accusations like "well then you're the same thing as the mayor." Pot is fucking pot. It's not crack. Only an idiot like Doug Ford (and you, apparently) would even try to equate them. Also, as I mentioned above, there's a lot more to Ford's conduct than just him having smoked crack. Beyond all of that, no one was asking Ford if he ever smoked crack until his dumb ass got too goddamn high and ended up being videotaped doing it. But seriously, man. Don't be dense. Pot is a plant that should be legalized immediately since most people smoke it anyway, and you'd be hard pressed to find a majority of people who feel otherwise. You know how they say there are no dumb questions? That was a pretty dumb question, bro.
READER QUESTION: Why doesn't The Star focus on issues that actually impact Torontonians day-to-day like the budget, taxes, services, etc.? The Mayor smoking crack has very little relative impact on our lives than the political decisions made by the Mayor and Council. Is The Star a tabloid or a serious newspaper? I am not saying there should be no coverage of Ford smoking crack, but there are 10x more articles on Ford than actual city policy.
by Tom edited by Robyn Doolittle
Argh! It's like talking to a really dumb brick wall around here. Crack is the catalyst for this story but it is not the story. The story is the lying liar who lies and the major elected office he holds. The story is about the fact that the mayor's sole job beyond what a city councillor's is (other than making appointments he already made ages ago) is to be credible. He's a spokeperson for the city. He has to sell us to people. No one can get shit done because they're all busy dealing with his crazy ass. That impacts all the stuff you just mentioned. How many CEOs do you know that want to sit in a room with a crackhead to talk about investing in our city? Take your head out of your ass and realize that this is the biggest, most important thing going on at city hall right now so yeah, duh, it's also the biggest story. All the hand wringing in the world about how this is distracting from important stuff won't change that. And if you really have a problem with it, maybe it's the guy who's causing the distraction and refusing to leave rather than the papers covering it that you should take that up with.
READER QUESTION: What a waste of time, doesn't council have real work to do?
by joe edited by Robyn Doolittle
It's the middle of the day on a weekday. Don't you?
READER QUESTION: Do you think any of the early coverage by the media of Ford was bullying? Stuff like the front cover of NOW showing him in bondage gear, stories about his niece playing football, photos of him biting into a hot dog, media showing up at his home at the crack of dawn dressed like a viking? Remember stuff one party things is just in good fun can be viewed by the other party as bullying!
by wetsurfer edited by Robyn Doolittle
I will speak for the Toronto Star. No. Guy's an asshole and a trainwreck and he brings it all on himself. If accurately reporting on the dumb shit he does constantly and the danger he is to the office he currently occupies and the city he runs is your idea of bullying, you should probably read a dictionary. As for the viking thing--that was Mary Walsh doing a character for a comedy show. Hardly the "media." And every other politician she's done it to of every political stripe has been just fine with it. If Ford's too dense to take a joke, maybe he should go back to pretending to work for his daddy's company and leave the big leagues to those who can hack it.
READER QUESTION: Rob Ford was reported to have a drinking problem, to have made racist remarks and to be charged with assaulting his wife before the 2010 election. Why did news organizations not publicize these issues more at that time? When these issues were raised, it seemed that people downplayed them and disbelieved them. Didn't the media have a responsibility to make the public aware of his issues before he was elected?
by boulders edited by Robyn Doolittle
Did you spend the entirety of 2010 leading up to the election in the Arctic or something? All we talked about, all most Toronto media talked about that year was the shitshow that is Rob Ford. The Florida thing. The ACC thing. The "probably won't get AIDS" thing. The crap about those hard-working "Orientals." The council outbursts. It was all well-documented and repeated ad nauseum. It's the media's responsibility to make those issues public. As for making the public aware, well, it's the public's own damn responsibility to pay attention to the avalanche of information we're trying to dump on them. Don't blame us because you were too self-involved to pay attention before it was too late. We did our jobs.
READER QUESTION: What is your true motivation for your Rob Ford obsession? Are you doing it out of an altruistic concern for what you perceive to be the welfare of the city and the integrity of the Office of The Mayor, or, are your superiors pressuring you to come up with more and more dirt on him in an effort to increase sales of the print edition and drive more people to the webpage? Is it self-aggrandizement and a personal ambition to try to eventually make a name for yourself as an independent writer and sell books? Also, with (the challenges of the newspaper industry) do you think The Toronto Star will survive?
by Michael Provost edited by Robyn Doolittle
What is your true motivation for writing this question to me? Are you really so clueless that you consider wanton acts of gross irresponsibility on the part of the guy elected to run the city "dirt"? Do you actually think we or anyone else reporting on the things the mayor is actually doing (as in, we're not making this stuff up, we're just reporting on it) is doing it because we're under pressure? Were you lobotomized as a child? Are you so out to lunch that you really think a city hall reporter writing about the mayor of the city smoking crack and lying about it constitutes an "obsession"? I am so sick of these goddamn livechats. I have to put up with fuckwads like you questioning my integrity and my motives for doing my job while you completely ignore THE GODDAMN CRACK SMOKING MAYOR WHO LIES TO YOU EVERY CHANCE HE GETS! It's like living in some weird backwards bizarro world when I talk to you Ford Nation assholes. Do you walk on your hands? Do hamburgers eat you for dinner? Everyone in the goddamn city besides you fucking freak shows and his own family wants the guy to quit and he refuses to and you want to talk about my personal ambition? Are you so fucking selfish that the fact you don't have to pay $60 for your car this year is enough to make you still want the guy who hits the pipe while he cuts funding for drug prevention? You really think this talking meatwad represents your interests? Also fuck you with your "newspapers are dead" bullshit. We'll be here for a very loooooong time. Because even moronic assholes with axes to grind like yourself are still giving us pageclicks on our web site just to bitch at us. So thanks for the tiny bit of job security you just provided me by coming here in the first place. Now go fuck yourself.
jeez, quit swearing and talking like the twelve year old that you look like.
ReplyDeleteseriously, little girl. time to get over yourself now. No one would even know about you if it wasn't for this whole crack thing. And you didn't do anything so amazing.
ReplyDeleteUmmmmm you get that that's not really her, right?
DeleteAnd you have proven how frigging dumb Rob Ford supporters are. Too funny. Torontonians who voted for Ford and still stand by him are textbook examples of why democracy should not be given to idiots.
DeleteYou are brilliant. I know the blogs are real, too real.
ReplyDeleteRead all the public blogs and what (you) had to say.
For a moment I considered that you designed the comments. It doesn't matter. I dined on your
masterful replies which made smile and chuckle while having my breakfast. Thank you.
Wetsurfer: a troll,along with "Abba" -two Ford Nation bigots!
ReplyDeleteAbba,Wetsurfer,Marilyn, Muscle200, fuck you trolls! To Abba: Hey troll! Stick your lame brain up Rob Ford's asshole!
ReplyDelete