“In our respectful opinion, connections between drug dealers, gun dealers, a notorious crack house and the chief magistrate of Canada’s largest city fit the definition of something that can and should be explored in the public interest.”

These were the words of Michael Cooke, editor of the Star, yesterday at a hearing before the Ontario Press Council about complaints in which the news (including the Globe and Mail) has been reporting on the Ford family’s blatant lies, hypocrisy, and criminality. Those are my own words, by the way, which I have also gone to great lengths to back up in previous posts.

But that’s not good enough for some people.

One complainant, Darylle Donley, had this to say:

“I would be curious to know just how far a TV or radio reporter or newspaper person, has to go before they are sanctioned or curtailed? The Ford brothers are being lied about, innuendos and allegations are being made against them. The news should be concrete and proven truth.”

Of course, the same questions must never be posed about our public officials — right, Darylle? And what about the fact that you’re publicly slandering the newspapers by calling them liars? Where’s your “concrete and proven truth”?

And what sort of insane newspaper prints only well-established and proven truths? By that logic, we wouldn’t know anything about the gas plant cancellations by the provincial government which, judging by her allegiance to Ford, is exactly the type of thing she would want to have revealed. Donley’s narrow-mindedness is staggering and, sadly, unsurprising.

And just to demonstrate her bizarre mental processes, she followed up with a not-so-subtle racist rant that had nothing to do with the hearing:

“The persons in the story, were they connected with the Don Bosco football team? Around the Don Bosco football team, there were a lot of unsavory characters.”

If you’ll recall, this is the same community that decided to tell Rob Ford where to go after he slandered them in pretty much the same way as Donley (clearly she swallowed his shit, hook, line, and sinker). He then used city staff and resources to collect his football equipment “donation” from Don Bosco — if they aren’t willing to play the poor, disadvantaged, drug-addled hood kids to his magnificent white saviour image, fuck ’em!

In other words, the community itself rose up against Rob Ford to tell him unequivocally what they think of him. So of course his supporters, instead of listening to all of the people directly affected by Ford’s benevolence, decided instead to listen to, and wholeheartedly believe, the crap that poured out of the mouth one well-known public liar.

Donley is no stranger to publicly exposing her ability to blindly jump to conclusions, even going so far as to make not-so-veiled threats against those she deems unacceptable:

Regarding the 411 on Ford’s 911 (NOW, November 3-9). I wouldn’t know Mary Walsh if I tripped over her. If she accosted me at any time, never mind in that outfit with a sword on her ample hips, I would probably push her and then call 911.

She touched Mayor Rob Ford on the shoulder. How would Walsh react if someone came up to her early in the morning in her driveway?

Walsh is not a particularly delicate, fragile-looking person and could easily be a threat to anyone, even without opening her vicious mouth.

Darylle Donley
Toronto

Donley readily admits that if someone who she had never met, but doesn’t like because Rob Ford told her to, she would be willing to get violent on the spot.

Maybe this isn’t the same Darylle Donley, but that’s a pretty unique name, and the attitude fits to a “T”.

That’s Ford Nation for you, prototype or personified. They have such a hate on for anything that dares to question their beloved leader that they reject it all outright. Even when they claim that they are the subject of persecution (offering zero evidence, which of course makes their own claims complete lies by their own definition), they do offer insights into why they are so universally adored with statements like “Maybe it’s a woman thing”, and “…this is all down to a bung of women who like spending money…”

These are the same supporters of Rob Ford who, on his radio show cuts off people while inserting questionable “supporters” which, it turns out, openly lie about their identity and work directly for Ford.

This is the same Rob Ford that openly lies about his administration’s accomplishments – unquestioningly championed by glassy-eyed Ford Nation.

This is the same Rob Ford that calls the media all sorts of names and gets openly angry at anyone who wants to look into what he’s doing on the job as a public official. He is, after all, the Mayor and doesn’t need to answer to anyone.

This is the same Ford that repeatedly demands that the media are just a bunch of liars, despite the ridiculous number of statements by editors  and staff standing firmly behind their stories, while Ford himself abjectly refuses to answer any questions (and insults whole groups of people while doing it —  par for the course for Ford).

This is the same Rob Ford that has had to defend himself against a slew of lawsuits on a broad range of topics. None of these are being mentioned, of course, including the fact that it was legally proven that Ford had broken the law numerous times while on the job.

This is the same Rob Ford that surrounds himself with criminals and ne’er do wells who run around trying to cover up the fat man’s misdeeds.

Above all, it doesn’t matter that these allegations have been corroborated by so many independent sources, or that the so-called “anonymous” sources that Ford supporters complain about are not anonymous at all. And of course it’s just fine and not at all sheer hypocrisy that 30 of the 41 complaints before the Press Council meeting are anonymous (and only 6 are formal and in writing)! Besides this, many of the names connected with the Ford crack scandal have been corroborated (not to mention being printed in the news), to the n-th degree. Rob Ford’s evidence in his own defense: zilch.

I could go on for days but the brunt of the issue is that Ford and his supporters are entirely guilty of the very same accusations they throw around like they invented them. They want news media to engage in responsible journalism while they themselves think it’s perfectly okay to deceive and insult and threaten, while there’s not a single shred of evidence that the stories about Ford are false, and much evidence exists to prove that they’re true.

Isn’t it hypocritical of me to be name calling like this? In fact, isn’t it slanderous?

Recently a TCL reader left a reply to a mayoral candidate post I’d done a while ago that reminded me of how deluded and just plain bizarre people’s understanding of these things are, so let me explain what the difference between slander and merely an uncomfortable yet fully legal article is: facts.

This little concept still seems to be lost on so many people.

They think that calling a proven liar a “liar” is slander. They think that anyone who mentions a known, proven criminal as a “criminal” is engaging in irresponsible journalism.

Whatever you do, just don’t bring up facts and use words that accurately describe those facts, especially if those facts are about the Fords!

They believe that corroborating and linking to the facts that back up your claims are irrelevant — only what known liars and criminals say, with no proof or evidence of any kind, is acceptable.

There is an interesting closing point I’d like to mention here:

Snickering, sneering Ford Nation are about to get a taste of their own medicine. While Rob Ford managed to scrape by on appeals when it mattered, we’ve seen many examples where breaking the law has had absolutely no repercussions — from campaign finances to conflicts of interest. There seems to be no mechanism to hold our elected officials to account at all. And while I think this Ontario Press Council thing is a sham, the reason I’m not getting upset is that they have roughly the same teeth as those groups tasked with making sure politicians don’t break the law.

In other words, even if they find that the Star, Globe and Mail, etc. all did something inappropriate, the best that they can do is have the newspapers print the decision.

I’m certain that, no matter the decision, the news outfits will make at least this small gesture. I’m equally sure that, based on everything we’ve witnessed thus far, Rob Ford would do no such thing. In fact, he would deny any wrongdoing whatsoever, insult and denigrate those who question him, genuinely slander a few more for good measure, and then fuck off for the rest of the early afternoon to go coach football with city staff and resources. And it wouldn’t be the Fords if they didn’t repeatedly lie about it all afterwards!