General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCall me old fashioned but I think if you're mayor and smoke crack in a drunken stupor
you should resign
Mayor Rob Ford said on Tuesday he has smoked crack cocaine, confirming reports that have dogged the leader of Canada's largest city for months but not likely ending the headline-grabbing saga as the embattled Toronto politician promised to fight on.
In a day of high drama, Mr. Ford told reporters that he smoked the drug "about" a year ago when "in one of my drunken stupors."
Speaking outside his office at City Hall, the mayor said, "Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine," after having repeatedly denied reports of drug use since they first emerged in May.
Mr. Ford also said he would remain in office, raising questions in Toronto about how the controversy will affect the running of North America's fourth-largest city by population and whether the global attention its mayor has garnered will hurt attempts to position the city as a world leader in culture and finance.
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303661404579179822063873580
trumad
(41,692 posts)People who say they don't care what he does do not have deep thinking capabilities.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)elected officials were doing a great job. I would take a crack-smoking person who understood science and society than a sober Tea Party person.
trumad
(41,692 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I was just trying to say drug use isn't my main concern when voting for someone.
trumad
(41,692 posts)really? How about Meth? Heroin?
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)than their drug use.
trumad
(41,692 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)we just focus on different things.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)He replaced David Miller, who was very liberal. The mayorship tends to pendulum back and forth between liberal and conservative in Toronto.
Sid
Aerows
(39,961 posts)meth, heroin and heaven only knows what that make more sense than teabaggers. Have you *heard* and *seen* the shit they say? Someone on 12 hits of acid makes more sense than Michelle Bachmann or Louie Gohmert.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Basically, the worst of both worlds.
Sid
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)And he got thrown out of a hockey game for being drunk and disorderly, which I didn't even realize was *possible*.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)bigger red flags to me than drug use.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Hell, I'd rather have a hard core drug addict representing me than a tea bagger idiot.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Which means there were probably many, many more. And that is more an indictment against his ability to effectively govern.
I don't really care that much that he smoked crack just as I don't care much that almost every president in popular recollection probably did coke.
cali
(114,904 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)drunken stupors? meh, what's the prob? ...............
Ford is an asshole that should have been gone long ago, imo.
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)we Canadians should good-naturedly accept as a perfectly good excuse ...... even after he gets caught lying. Every one of us, I imagine, has tried illicit drugs at one time or another and as long as he's not addicted to crack-cocaine, that's one thing ...... the 'drunken stupor' thing usually indicates someone who spends more than a little time being pissed, not an example I'd want for my children in Toronto, or anywhere else. He's an arrogant, self-entitled, millionaire asshole.
But Ford wasnt a details guy. During my time on his campaign and in the mayors office, I probably knew where he was about 50% of the time, says Adrienne Batra, his former communications director who left to become editorial page editor at the Toronto Sun at the end of 2011. Hed just disappear and youd ask him where he was and hed say, Oh, around town. In recent months his behavior has become more erratic, former aides say. He skipped council meetings to coach football and wouldnt show up to work until after 11am. A court in November threw him out of office for using mayoral letterhead to raise money for his gridiron charity. He won an appeal in February.
Read more: Rob Ford, Toronto Mayor, Singlehandedly Makes Canadian Politics Interesting Again | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/04/toronto-mayor-singlehandedly-makes-canadian-politics-interesting-again/#ixzz2jpFzOrEJ
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)"because they have health care!"
Don'cha think most Canadians don't really care if some mayor once got snockered and smoked crack, because overall they know their health system will take care of them...as well as most of government?
polly7
(20,582 posts)don't believe that drunken stupors set a great example for the youth of the nation. I'm of the 'so what' camp if someone has tried or used illicit drugs ...... abusing alcohol (it sounds like quite a lot more than many of us do) and using that as some defense after flat out lying about there being a video, is someone I wouldn't trust to take care of my dog, let alone a city of children. Our health-care has nothing to do with it.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)or, I should say, some rehab for his alcohol and crack use, before he runs for office again. The remark to my husband was more about Canadian's overall political attitudes than one person running for office. There are bad apples everywhere, in every country and every culture...
polly7
(20,582 posts)don't have that attitude at all. We don't count on our (not free health-care) for anything other than keeping ourselves healthy, and bringing that into this situation is something I don't understand at all. He's done some shitty things, he's an arrogant asshole and doesn't deserve one more day in office - just as wouldn't any other politician in any other country.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)you have universal health care and we don't. It isn't supposed to be a full blown political treatise, really! We thought Canadians were friendly and we perfectly understand the peace of mind you have with not worrying about whether you will have a financial wipe-out because of an illness. Perhaps you can understand how that can be stressful?
polly7
(20,582 posts)I've been trying right along with you for a decade introducing facts about universal health-care to dispel a lot of the bullshit people use to oppose it.
Having decent health-care doesn't exempt us from the harm done by asshole politicians though. We do have issues that affect us deeply too, like the tar sands, our conservative nutcases who want to do away with that health-care and every other social program we've fought for and won, NAFTA and now the TPP that will make it even easier for them.... Too many freaks like Ford who lie and abuse the privilege that comes with being an elected representative. All those things can be stressful as well. Having decent health-care doesn't turn a lying Ford who thinks drunken stupors are fine into a rainbow-shitting unicorn.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)And I love your telling of those conservative politicians among you that are bad and not progressive, at all. It helps us understand your political situation better...I'm glad you are here, Polly!
polly7
(20,582 posts)And I really, truly do understand how stressful not having access to health-care for everyone must be ... we have to watch ourselves carefully, especially now .... or we'll lose much of what we have. We seem boring up here politically, but much of that is only because Harper and his sneaks manage to hide things a lot better, and who really pays attention to us, anyway. I'm glad to be here among such smart, caring people as yourself, and what a nice thing for you to say! That said, I'm very, very glad you're ACA was successful in getting through and it's heartwarming reading of all the people who now will be able to stay healthy.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)glad you are here on DU. We need your voice (do we EVER!). We'll get there on the ACA, I am sure. It is bound to happen.
Sorry about that awful mayor, but there are always bad apples. Don't worry...I have faith in you guys!
polly7
(20,582 posts)FSogol
(45,548 posts)scotch?
cali
(114,904 posts)for fuck's sake he was, in his own words, in one of his drunken stupors.
FSogol
(45,548 posts)No one seemed to care about W's crack jaw grinding away.
cali
(114,904 posts)lied about it and then months later admitted to doing it while in drunken stupor, people would still be pissed.
And I don't know what Canada's laws are re crack and coke and perhaps there is a different cultural pov in Canada about it.
In any case, for the love of reason, bush was never caught on video snorting coke or smoking crack.
do you understand the difference between evidence and conjecture? Never mind. It's clear you don't.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)FSogol
(45,548 posts)don't."
The slightest disagreement and you go on the attack, firing insults! Think of your health and learn to relax.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)He doesn't want Toronto to so much as have homeless shelters, for instance, because Those People are inherently criminal. He howled for years about wanting to put down anyone touching drugs of any sort in as draconian a way as possible.
The way he's been ranting the last several years, with his whole tough on crime fetish? Anything past light social drinking and I'd be all for pillorying him for the hypocrisy alone. With this, he's basically shut down governance of the largest city in the country for months with said staggering hypocrisy, and it's gotten at least one or two people killed in the course of the whole fiasco.
So yeah, fuck him, and it doesn't matter in the least what he was partaking in, not with the way he's acted about it and the way he's spoken and acted towards other people.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)harder than all the people he's hurt, combined.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)For the love of Pete ... this idiot offered the explanation that he did it (crack or cocaine in this instance it is irrelevant) while in a drunken stupor. As if that made it better.
FSogol
(45,548 posts)in society's perception of crack vs cocaine.
stillcool
(32,626 posts)Doing that stuff while you're in office is messed up..really messed up if you let yourself get caught.
FSogol
(45,548 posts)Revanchist
(1,375 posts)and then get re-elected once your sentence is complete.
When I saw the OP title, the first thing I thought of was oh... Marion Barry, at it again. I know he's not mayor anymore, but he's still on the DC city council IIRC. lol
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)The voting demographics of the city are weird. The suburban area is vast due to the amalgamation a few years back, and Ford's always campaigned on a completely uninhibited platform of "nice suburban white people against the evil urban hordes." He could be on camera shooting someone for kicks and he'd probably still poll 35% if the victim was the wrong skin colour or lived downtown.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Ford and his brother host a weekly radio program on one of our local AM talk stations. Lots and lots of chances for Ford to put his foot in his mouth and say something stupid, and he rarely disappoints.
Our morning shows are having a fucking riot with the audio clips.
Sid
applegrove
(118,832 posts)the drug dealers. The police followed and taped Ford and his friend for months. I think there is more trouble for ford. More serious trouble.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)no one is paying attention to how much he denied this. Lying, substance abuse---I'm with you cali, old-fashioned or not.
REP
(21,691 posts)FSogol
(45,548 posts)How can we miss him if he won't go away?
JeffHead
(1,186 posts)He's all for lynching homeless people.
Bicyclers deserve to be run over.
He smokes a lot of pot.
And he can't play football.
The crack smoking thing is just icing on the cake for this right wing jackass.