Rob Ford of Toronto …of course.
Appearing drunk …again … this past weekend at a public event.
The dear fellow appears to have a death wish – at least politically speaking.
And yet… the Ford Nation has once again rallied around their man.
The common refrain seems to be ‘he is just human like us’.
Or you could say, he totally lacks self control. In fact .. that is my take on it.
Let’s put ourselves in his shoes for a minute:
You or I are Mayor of the largest city in Canada and one of the largest cities in North America and rumours are rife …for good reason..that you or I have a substance abuse problem.
So how would you / I go about addressing that negative perception.
You are right …we certainly would not go out in public tipsy..
And we certainly would not then go public and brag about it.
The bottom-line here is that Mayor Ford lacks discipline and is this the type of person you would want to elect as one of your leaders?
My answer of course is no – but I leave it to you to answer that yourself.
Clearly a number see this all to be quite refreshing – a leader has come down to their level which sadly is not all that unusual these days.
I think it does show clearly that many of our leaders have indeed reduced themselves to the common denominator and this is nothing to rejoice about.
But I also think of the Office itself – in the case at hand – the Mayoralty of the City of Toronto. There is a certain responsibility the holder of that office owes the office itself; things like dignity, responsibility, trustworthiness.
So if Ford cannot act with decorum for himself, he should at least do it for the Office.
It used to be that way and often for little or no remuneration. Just for the Honour of serving.
I say this as a Libertarian Tory and I know that Ford falls into that camp but in so doing, he does not get a pass from me.
It is time for Ford to grow up or get out.
As I see it …
‘K.D. Galagher’
