That is, presuming there'll still be Fords and Mammos keeping the myth going. And presuming that future contenders aren't as tin-eared in their hopeful idealism as Tory, Chow, and--sadly--Domise turned out to be this time.
That might be expecting too much,
Adma. I was genuinely horrified by Chow's incompetent, politically tone-deaf performance during the campaign - and God knows, Tory wasn't much better - but I wasn't surprised by it. After Ford slithered his way into City Hall, I began hanging out at a fairly well known Canadian political website that caters to the left. I was already a member of this site (and had been for some time), but I rarely visited because I usually found the dialogue there to be too dry and policy wonk-like for my tastes. Nevertheless, with a wild-eyed, extremist lunatic somehow having ensconced himself quite comfortably in the Toronto Mayor's office, I wanted to be among like-minded people who'd feel the same way that I did about such an appalling situation. And surely the official, self-appointed Canadian left as a whole would have the same reaction that many of us here did, i.e. horror, unhappiness, revulsion. After all, they're the ones you'd expect to be the biggest opposition to the likes of Slob and Thug Ford. Sounds reasonable...
right?
Ho, ho. If I were to sum up the leftists contributing to that site with one word, it would be "useless:" absolutely no street smarts whatsoever, very little in the way of plain, old fashioned common sense to boot, and all the self-preservation skills of a herd of lemmings stampeding off a cliff. Given that Ford slimed his way to being Mayor with the most deliberately divisive and irresponsibly demagogic campaign in the city's history, you'd think the left here would regard him with a very cold eye, or a certain amount of suspicion at the very least. But these naive waifs kept bending over backwards to be "fair" to Ford well beyond the point of simple sanity, giving him credit he didn't deserve for self-aggrandizing photo op moments - in this, they were far more credulous than out-and-out Ford Nayshun members, and these people were supposed to be Ford's political enemies! - and stupidly insisted on giving the benefit of doubt after doubt after doubt to St. Slob, well past the point where it was demonstrable Ford lied every time he opened his greasy mouth. Yes, there was
some criticism of Ford, mainly of the polite, well mannered, finger-wagging school; gentle "tsk tsks" for the most part. I believe somebody actually went so far as to refer to him as a jerk once. Gasp!
One specific anecdote that still burns me up when I remember it: Perhaps some of you recall the Fords doing a special edition of their radio program at the Ex a couple of years back? Even by
their standards, it was a remarkable performance. The two pigs were at some booth at the CNE and simply spewed out lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after
lie, directly onto the airwaves. Torontoist compiled a list of every single falsehood, and I posted a link to the story at this forum. The only one to respond to it was some dimwit who immediately began hysterically shrieking to high heaven that this "proved" the Toronto Star was "out to get" the poor, persecuted widdle Fords, and that he might just end up voting for innocent, helpless, defenseless l'il Rob come Election Day, just to spite that bad ol' Star. Ye Gods!
