@TOMayorFord, football, and the #TOpoli gong show: why does he let this go on?

Ford-football

OK, Ford Nation (or whatever you want to call yourselves)?
I may be a latte-drinking, Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging downtown elitist, but I don’t hate Rob Ford. I’m not keen on what he’s done to Toronto’s social fabric or the public conversation, but I don’t hate him or want to hurt him personally.
Honest to god.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Really.
I think it’s pretty clear that he hates his job. What’s less clear is why the hell he wants to hang on to it. It’s not like he needs the money or anything. And it’s obvious that it’s just getting in the way of his love for football.

 

All the rest of it — the hypocrisy, the bad optics, the cellphones, the staffers, the hamfisted attempts at misdirection, the victim narrative, the Shiny Objects, the counterproductive messaging, the Brother … just cherries on the shit sundae.

 

 

But here’s a thought, and for this I acknowledge both Ed Keenan and John Lorinc: can we just stop, already, and perhaps focus on the stuff that needs attention? Transit, infrastructure, poverty, the inequality gap, public services, the quality of our civic life? These are all things that we need to have serious adult conversations about, and that can’t happen with the Rob Ford Follies consuming our attention, our focus and our energy like a fire consumes oxygen.
It’s time to recognize Rob Ford for what he is: a distraction. An easy shot to the front page, or the top of the evening news, or the trending topics on Twitter, but nothing more. This will go on for as long as it goes on, but there’s nothing that says we have to drop everything and dwell on it every time he drops the ball.
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