Could the Rob Ford saga get any creepier?
A senior member of Rob Ford’s office was interviewed by police last week about a tip linking a video allegedly showing the mayor smoking illicit drugs to a recent Toronto homicide, two separate sources have confirmed. […]
The informant in the mayor’s office purported to know the address and unit number where the video was being held.
They went on to say that the video originally belonged to an individual who may have been killed for its potentially valuable contents, according to a source.
The video clip was allegedly offered for sale to the Star and Gawker by men involved in the drug trade, according to reports in both outlets. Gawker is trying to raise $200,000 for the video through an online campaign.
Asked by a caller to his Sunday radio show whether it is indeed him in the video described by the Star and the U.S. website Gawker, Ford laughed and responded, “Number one, there’s no video, so that’s all I can say. You can’t comment on something that doesn’t exist.”
Ford firmly called the reports “false,” a word that did not appear in his Friday speech at city hall . In that speech, he said, “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.” […]
Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother and co-host, said 80 per cent of journalists are “nasty son-of-a-guns.” Rob Ford interjected: “Bunch of maggots.” After a brief pause, he added, “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
maya
Have authorities checked with Obama’s grandmother in Kenya? She knows.
montanareddog
I hope they get David Simon to write the TV dramatisation of this
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
So I take it that the mayor has paid off the drug dealers and now that the filmer may be dead, we are supposed to go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
RepubAnon
From the Pelican Brief to the Polar Bear Brief?
MikeJ
All this fuss over a tape of the mayor saying the word Canuck.
Comrade Mary
Slightly different take from the National Post: in short, cops have confirmed that they talked to a staffer, but that the talk was NOT related to a homicide.
canuckistani
Whoever scripted the movie that I’m living through has lost his grip – this is all too outlandish to be believable.
MattF
I agree, it’s creepy. Whatever happened to Worthwhile Canadian Initiatives?
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
I fondly remember the days when the name “Ford” was only brought up in conversations about automobiles.
bcinaz
Drug.test.the.Mayor.of.Toronto. Good ‘ol Rob should be volunteering to submit hair, blood and urine to clear his name. If he’s not a crack head, no problem. Or would this go too far and be self incriminating? You decide,
feebog
I predict this is going to blow up into a big time clusterfuck. Made-for-TV movie waiting to happen.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@feebog:
It’s already pretty well blown up. TPM has been posting updates regularly. It just gets nastier and seedier the longer it goes on. We’re already well into Tarantino territory.
Gavin Kith
@bcinaz: Rob Ford got a very short haircut last week, which I’m sure is completely unrelated to the possibility of being drug tested.
maya
Stands to reason that some authority in Canuckistan must perform quality control over the crack fields of Alberta before allowing it to enter Wasilla.
Anya
@Comrade Mary: The Police might be trying to protect the integrity of the investigation.
Villago Delenda Est
@bcinaz:
This would be the logical thing for an utterly innocent man to do.
But he’s not about to do it, on “principle” I’m sure.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
belieber
Can’t believe Toronto voted for that compulsive liar fat bastard and a lot of people still try defend him. Find it hard to believe he would have the drug dealers bumped off though. More likely other low lifes trying to get the video which is now worth at least 200k. Then again, we are talking an alleged crack smoker who allegedly hangs with drug dealers.
Roger Moore
@Gavin Kith:
I guess interested parties will have to pull out a fingernail to get any sample, then.
TG Chicago
What is he, a vampire? Does he think he can credibly claim that the medium of video does not exist? What is he trying to say?
Is he seriously claiming that the Star and Gawker are just making up a video that he may or may not even be in? This guy is beyond dumb.
All he has to say is that he hasn’t done anything illegal, so no incriminating video could possibly exist. But by saying that no video exists at all (even video that he might not even be in!), he’s just setting himself up for a fall.
Ultraviolet Thunder
This scandal has reached the threshold where it needs “-gate” appended to it. Unless that’s exclusively a USA thing.
Crackgate? Any other suggestions?
Yatsuno
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I think that only applies to American scandals. Y’know, exceptionalism and some such rot.
Starlit
TEDTalk “Liespotting” by Pamela Myer notes that non-contracted denials are often false (“I did not have sex with that woman” being the famous example”). “I do not use crack cocaine” may be added to the list.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Starlit:
A good lie cannot be exposed by internal evidence. But an inexpert liar will often be more emphatic in a lie than in a truthful statement. “I did not leave the toilet seat up” rather than “It wasn’t me”.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
I am actually beginning to wonder if Rob Ford is going to survive his term. My thinking is that the pressure has gotten to him and exacerbated his existing substance abuse problem. He’s certainly shown no sign that he’s going to actually deal with his problems, so an overdose would not be a surprise.
Roger Moore
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
No true Scotsman. You’re defining a good lie as one that can’t be exposed by internal evidence. By that standard, there are very few really good lies, because most lies have systematic flaws. Liars tend to do all kinds of things that people who are telling the truth don’t do. They tend to be more emphatic, they volunteer more extraneous details, and they’re more likely to insist that all the details they give are exactly correct from the moment they give them.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Roger Moore:
Someone who’s really effective at lying, like a sociopath, will act exactly the same whether they’re lying or telling the truth. That’s what I meant by internal evidence. But that’s about 1% of the population. The rest of us give away all sorts of ‘tells’ when we’re fibbing.
Personally, I’m terrible at spotting a lie. I’m really easy to fool and have fallen for a number of bad lies and liars.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
The -gate thing was one of the late (thank FSM) William Safire’s hobby horses, as part of a general “mock this ‘scandal'” campaign because he was part of the criminal Nixon administration. He applied it to everything he could latch it onto, in an attempt to somehow lessen Nixon’s crimes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Starlit:
It was “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.
Which for a lawyer like Clinton was a factual statement. Even though most of us would consider a blow job to be, um, sex, “sexual relations” means, specifically, putting his flesh cigar into her ho-ha. Which he did not do. So he was being truthful…from a technical point of view.
Then again there’s the pecker tracks on the blue dress aspect, which means SOMEONE had a “good time”.
Lurking Canadian
@canuckistani: So you’re saying that the history of Canada has jumped the shark?
Svensker
Kinda wishing Toronto news would go back to being dull again. Horror stories are only fun when they’re fictional.
canuckistani
@Lurking Canadian:
I don’t know if it’s jumping the shark as much as switching genres from serious drama to stoner comedy.
Comrade Mary
Holy fucking shit.
Nutella
Perhaps the mayor said “Will no one rid me of this turbulent videographer?” and someone understood it to be an order.
Svensker
@Comrade Mary:
Holy macaroni!
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@Comrade Mary: The rats are considering their career prospects after the meltdown.
Svensker
@Comrade Mary:
Don Peat of the Sun is reporting that Doug Ford just canceled a press conference scheduled for this afternoon.
AHH onna Droid
@TG Chicago: Compulsive lying is a characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder.
Comrade Mary
Ford’s terse statement on the departure of his staff.
canuckistani
@Comrade Mary:
It’s hard to stop an avalanche once it starts rolling
JWL
Nixon, GW Bush, and not necessarily in that order. I get it. I understand how the sick in heart and mind get elected to office.
But can someone explain why the people of Toronto elected that clown as mayor?
canuckistani
@JWL:
The angry suburbanites choose him to be their culture warrior against the effete snobs of liberal downtown Toronto.
A bit oversimplified, but that’s the essence of it.
ImJohnGalt
This is all so depressing. As a Torontonian, I wish that our entire city council could be douchewashed and replaced with competent adults. We need to deconsolidate the city (which was consolidated in 1998), so that suburbanites can no longer be pitted against urbanites, and we can get on with the business of improving our respective (smaller) cities in ways that reflect the needs of their populations. Bike lanes, transit, better public housing – these are all things we desperately need in our city centre.
I’m willing to pay whatever taxes are required – small-brained small government morons are ruining the potential of our great city.
Delia
@ImJohnGalt:
You sound just like Americans.
PIGL
@canuckistani: abetted by a gerrymandering Rethuglican provincial government, intended to produce this very outcome (well, with epsilon more competence)
oldster
@canuckistani:
so in other words, Ford was elected by hippie-punchers, with a mandate to punch hippies.
Cool.
Also explains why he’s a crack-head, given that the puritanical sex-police are also the ones propositioning young boys in bathroom stalls.
PIGL
@oldster: The day after his toadships election, the Toronto Sun (which is our print media Fox News) ran frontpage urging as his first steps to scrub the bike lands, stop all recycling programs, and something else petty and mean that I can’t recall.
The angry suburbanites seem to think that they should be able to drive quick and fast to and from and around the city which is the economic engine of their suburban life, without paying any costs whatsoever towards upkeep. They are selfish scum to a man, and would be perfectly at home on the Confederate Party. In fact, a 30 year conspiracy of “conservative” think tanks funded by American billionaires has created such a party for them, and put it in reach of permanent power.
Double nickel
Shorter Rob Ford: Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?
ImJohnGalt
@Delia:
Which part? The part where I say we should raise taxes to pay for the things our city requires, or the part where I wish the people running the municipality would act like adults instead of saying we need more transit but are themselves unwilling to commit to any “revenue tools”, lest it be used on them in the next municipal campaign?
Rob Ford is a populist boob who encourages the Id of suburbanites, convincing them that there is massive waste at city hall whilst talking in sophomoric slogans. He has hurt this city so much by reducing necessary taxes that resulted in cuts that overwhelmingly affect the poor, while making stupid decisions (e.g. The Eglinton LRT has to be more underground) that have unnecessarily cost the city a great deal of money.
You sound like someone who contributes very little to a conversation.
RedKitten
@Comrade Mary: Do you blame them? Nothing worse than trying to do PR for a loose cannon. Comm people usually only quit when it’s become impossible for them to do their job.
RedKitten
@ImJohnGalt: Hear, hear! Amalgamation rarely turns out well.
The frightening thing is all of the Ford apologists who insist that the word of the reporter is worth nothing. If that’s the case, then why the hell do we even have reporters? I just DO hope that video surfaces soon, though, for Robyn Doolittle’s sake — I’m guessing she’s received some pretty ugly correspondence over this
canuckistani
@PIGL:
Don’t forget shutting 1/3 of the libraries in the city.
Well, we had one win here – we killed the Casino and deprived Ford of a Mafia-funded retirement, so he’s not invincible.
Paul in KY
@Gavin Kith: Also received a full-body Brazilian. It was previously scheduled.