Crack-smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford makes U.S. pols look good

By Robin Abcarian

Nov. 13, 2013 9:23 AM PT

Thank you, Rob Ford.

Thank you for making American politicians look so good. It’s almost as though the mayor of Toronto was planted north of the border just to make the American citizenry think to itself: “Hey, we thought our guys were dysfunctional. But look at this Canadian guy! Our guys act like crackheads. Their guy actually is a crackhead.”

Oh, I know.

We’re all supposed to shake our heads and think: How terribly dreadful for the upstanding citizens of Toronto that their mayor is an admitted crack cocaine smoker. We sincerely hope he tenders his resignation post-haste, gets into treatment and allows the city to heal from this terrible blow to its image.

Here’s what we really think: Woo-hoo! We finally got ourselves a misbehaving Canadian who is not holding a stick and wearing ice skates. We haven’t had this much fun reading about a Canadian politician since, well … uh … have we ever had fun reading about a Canadian politician?

This red-faced man, who looks like he was inflated by a bicycle pump, blames his descent into depraved drug misbehavior on alcoholism, or, as he so memorably put it, his “drunken stupor.” That is as messed up as it gets.

Again, our guys only act like they are in a drunken stupor. Their guy actually is in a drunken stupor.

Better yet, Ford seems to be on his way to some sort of folk hero status.

At Toronto City Hall on Tuesday, hundreds of Torontonians lined up as early as 5 a.m. to purchase a limited edition of Rob Ford bobblehead dolls, a long-planned fundraiser for United Way. By late in the day, someone had found one of the $20 “Robbie Bobbie” dolls for sale on EBay. Asking price: $155. (The doll is a much-slimmed down representation of the 44-year-old mayor, though its head appears to bounce as if in a drunken stupor.)

Ford, who has refused to step down, shamelessly signed the boxes in the atrium of Toronto City Hall, declaring to reporters, according to the National Post, “it just bounces back all the time.”

On Wednesday, Ford faced the Toronto City Council. They can’t make him resign, but they can ask him to step down and get some help. On his way to the session, he told reporters he was ready for a “rumble in the jungle.”

And once he got there, the session deteriorated into an argument over whether Ford threatened a fellow councilman when Ford insisted the councilman take his seat while Ford was speaking.

Council Speaker Frances Nunziata demanded that Ford apologize.

“I don’t think there’s an apology necessary,” insisted Ford. “I’m not going to apologize. I did absolutely nothing wrong beside asking him to take his seat.”

“It’s World Kindness Day,” noted another councilman.

“We should all give each other a hug today,” Nunziata said.

Good luck with that, Toronto.

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