Rob Ford Gets Arrested a Lot, Is Forgetful

Remember all those times that I've said that Toronto mayoral hopeful Rob Ford can't get out of bed in the morning without tripping over his own dick? Remember how I also said that by Election Day in October, he'd probably humiliate himself about fourteen times?

I'm pretty good, huh?

Okay, maybe I'm not all that great. But I am a student of the human condition, and Ford is the most predictable of characters. He's a fat kid who was handed a ton of money and a political career by his daddy and consequently thinks that he's a gorgeous, self-made man who's earned everything he's got. People like that tend to embarrass themselves with some regularity because they have no idea how life really works.

Well, it's been an eventful week in the Decline and Fall of Rob Ford.

It started out innocently enough, with the candidate opining that Toronto could really do without any more immigrants. Which, when you think about it, is an odd position, considering that immigration is a wholly federal responsibility. Furthermore, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants mobility rights to anyone in the country, meaning that you can't exclude them from a given province, territory or city. Even if they're "working like dogs" to "take over."

That's not to say that he's necessarily wrong. This city was never designed to handle the number of people who live here. Toronto is decades behind in infrastructure investment. But when he suggests that limiting immigration is the answer, he's proving that he's either running for the wrong office, or that he might be a moron. When you hear statements like Ford's, take them for what they are: populist nonsense from someone who never had to bother learning anything about anything.

That would constitute an awful week for most politicians, but not our Rob. Oh, no. He had to pony up to a foreign arrest that he had previously denied.

When asked by reporters from the Toronto Sun if he had been criminally charged in Florida, Ford vehemently denied the possibility: “No, to answer your question. I’m dead serious. When I say ‘no’ I mean never. No question. Now I’m getting offended. No means no.”

Only after concrete evidence in the form of court records was produced did the city councilor admit he had been convicted of drunk driving, as well as a conviction for assault when he was 18.

His past convictions in and of themselves are no reason to withdraw from politics, but two things make them deeply troubling.

Wait a second. What the fuck? Let's all hold hands and read that last sentence together, shall we?

His past convictions in and of themselves are no reason to withdraw from politics, but two things make them deeply troubling.

That's how I know that I'm getting old. I actually remember a time when there were few better reasons to withdraw from politics than a criminal conviction. And Ford's got two of them! Jesus Creeping God, that Rob's lucky that Toronto is the liberal place that it is. Where else would you read that sentence, outside of the official media of a revolutionary republic in the Middle East or Africa?

But let's continue with Andrew Steele at the Globe and Mail has to say. I'll bet that it's funny.

The first is the pattern of poor judgment Mr. Ford has shown again and again.

From demanding Toronto bar immigrants fleeing violent persecution to his confrontations with reporters, Ford’s knee-jerk responses to every situation make Sarah Palin look like Mahatma Gandhi.

The second is Ford’s repeated habit of denying the truth when confronted.

In 2006, the city councilor dismissed allegations he got drunk at a Maple Leafs game and verbally abused a Durham couple before being escorted out by security. Only after reporters began digging did Ford change his story and admit the truth.

Once is a mistake. Twice is a habit. Mr. Ford’s habit is to lie when confronted with an unfortunate fact.

Mr. Steele just hasn't been paying attention has he? Ford's entire campaign is a lie in the face of unfortunate facts. He's actually promising to cut taxes and fees, while broadly increasing investment and social spending by billions of dollars, which is weaponized nonsense. Anyone who votes for a platform like that is guilty of wishful thinking and a profound ignorance of mathematics, at best.

No, the most troubling thing about Rob Ford's criminal history - other than the fact that it is exists at all - is that he had to call a press conference yesterday morning and state that he had been arrested and charged three times. Which, when you come to think of it, is twice more than Paul Bernardo was.

And his explanation about initially denying the marijuana charge strains even the credulity of the fully retarded.

The Etobicoke councillor summoned reporters to the offices of his family business at 9 a.m. Thursday to explain a local newspaper story that said Mr. Ford beat the marijuana possession charge -- something he initially denied to the newspaper.

“I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it right now,” he is quoted as saying in the Toronto Sun. “You think I’m BSing you but I’m not. It completely, totally slipped my mind.”

That's right, he forgot. Simple mistake, right? Happens to the best of us. No BSing to be found at Ford for Mayor, by Gum!

Not exactly. You and I have seen Midnight Express, and you can bet your ass that Rob has, too. Getting arrested in a foreign country for drugs is not something that a traditional gentleman tends to "forget." That's the kind of experience that rational adults tend to respond to by becoming pants-shittingly scared in ways that change your life.

And in Florida? Those crazed bastards will jail you for centuries just because your lawn isn't cut short enough. Nobody suffered a prison gang-rape in Midnight Express, but those kind of high-jinks go on all the time in the Florida penal system. I'm reasonably certain that that's the first thing you think of when you see those cop-lights and you're holding weed.

What kind of a fucking life have you been leading if getting busted with dope in Florida "slipped your mind"? More importantly, can I be your friend? It sounds like you really know how to have a good time. Come to think of it, why didn't Rob just send Dieter Doneit-Henderson to Miami back in June?

Of course, I'm sure that any number of the Ford faithful are going to write this up as a "youthful indiscretion." But in 1999, Ford was thirty years old and was but a year away from winning his seat on Toronto City Council.

You know how many times I had been arrested for drunk driving and drug possession in Florida and assault at home by the time I was thirty? None is how fucking many! And if I had been, I sure as hell wouldn't have the balls to run for office less than a year later. the most obscene part is that I actually have to go through an Ontario Provincial Police criminal background check each and every year to hold my job. Moreover, I get to pay eighty bucks out of my own pocket for the privilege .

Personally, my favorite part of the press conference was his stressing that he "does not have a criminal record." Somehow, "Three Arrests, Four Charges, No Criminal Record" strikes me as a less than ideal campaign slogan, although it would look fantastic on a bumper sticker.

Don't worry, though. The Ford campaign has a really solid rehabilitation strategy to overcome this. They're going to stop talking to the Toronto Star. Which is a brilliant idea, when you think about it. The Star isn't just the highest circulation newspaper in the city that Rob wants to lead, it's the highest circulation paper in the entire country. And Canada has two national newspapers. But that's okay, I'm sure that the Star won't be too vindictive.

Ordinarily, cutting off a news outlet's access to a campaign isn't smart because it denies you the opportunity to respond to stories in the pipeline, or to get your spin in those stories before they're published. The current Ford strategy is such a horrible mistake that I can't remember of the last time a successful politician actually did it. Worse, making public declaration that the paper is cut off gives said paper the excuse to not even seek a comment on the story, which in itself is a heads-up that the story is coming.

And that's very bad when all of the worst things that have been said about a candidate have a nasty history of being proven true. That's very, very bad.

The best part is that Ford is too arrogant and too stupid to get out of the mayoral race now, and maybe save his council seat. That means that it'll only be a couple of days before the Star runs a story about a dozen hookers buried in Rob's yard; which he'll initially deny, before holding a press conference to admit that it was only nine whores, and that he killed them in self-defense. If we're really lucky, he'll close by saying "Vote Quimby!"

I almost hate to admit it, but Rob Ford is a dream come true to a fatalist like me. I might just vote for him, after all.