Should A History of Smoking Crack Disqualify One From Office?

[Lucky]

He may be an all-round sleaze ball, but who cares if in the past he smoked some crack?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Toronto-mayor-admits-crack-use-plans-to-keep-job-4956867.php

[Guest zipperzone]

Well the crack he smoked "in the past" was during his time as mayor of the largest city in Canada.

So who cares? Well the Attorney General for Canada, for one.

[KYTOP]

Should A History of Smoking Crack Disqualify One From Office?

Yes,

[MsGuy]

Or, phrased more precisely, got so hammered last year he could puff crack and not remember doing it...

and then got hammered in public again last Spring...

and then got hammered again at his office in August...

or so it's reported.

[Guest CharliePS]

How far "in the past?" Like, maybe last weekend?

[TampaYankee]

Depends on how long and how recent. What is more telling is the cover-up but isn't that always the case. This guy is a lying thug.

You know a Mayor, any Mayor, is up to his ass in gators when he blames blatant illegal actions on being "in a drunken stupor". lol I wonder what he blames six months of in-public bare-faced lies on?

[AdamSmith]

How far "in the past?" Like, maybe last weekend?

Hah! Like when Capote stumbled snockered onto Carson's set. Johnny asked, "Have you been drinking?"

In reply Truman slurred out, "...You mean lately?"

[Lucky]

We have as a society become more tolerant of politicians past mistakes. Obama, for example, admitted to using cocaine. Once upon a time, divorce would be a dis-qualifier. But I agree that this mayor is so laden with problems, he should be using all of his faculties to do his job. There have been plenty of politicians with cocaine problems, but when caught they usually resign and go into rehab so that they can run again as "reformed."

[AdamSmith]

past

The key word, right?

And the old "There was only that one time and I had an excuse then anyway" -- the dead giveaway that a person is far from beginning to deal honestly with his problems.

[Lucky]

Yes, in my question, it is. The mayor, I think, claims only the one time use while in office. Although I doubt that, I think his alcohol problems alone interfere with his ability to do his job. I see 12 steps in his future.

[AdamSmith]

Agree. When your best excuse for doing crack is "Well I must have been all liquored up..."!

[AdamSmith]

http://riotwire.com/cartoon/rob-fords-city-hall-guide-to-drugs/

[MsGuy]

Agree. When your best excuse for doing crack is "Well I must have been all liquored up..."!

Precisely the point.

[Guest gcursor]

In response to the original question, no, it shouldn't. To pretend that everybody taking political office are virtuous people who never slip and fall is totally unrealistic. Nobody on Earth is like that. It should not bar somebody from running from office because that's what our "Democracy" weeds out anyway. If you don't like what a candidate did then you can vote them out at the earliest time possible. However saying that people can't do this or that is just plain stupid because we hear about the people doing x, y and z on a fairly regular basis. Truth be know, our form of "Democracy" is a severely watered-down version of what the founding fathers wanted to begin with. I'm not saying that theirs would have gone much better but we're so far off the "blueprint" now with everything that goes on that I think somebody who is doing drugs is the least worries in our woefully broken system.

gcursor

[Guest zipperzone]

Unfortunately the bottom line of this situation is that his popularity rating has actually risen as his supporters see him as being "so nobel" in confessing his use. I truly believe that this slug, this hunk of pond scum, will be reelected in 2014. Doesn't say much for Canadians, IMO.

[Guest FourAces]

While I agree it depends on how recent ... I also feel strongly that it should be up to the voters. If they want a crack smoking mayor so be it. But for me ......

[RA1]

gcursor-

I agree it should not disqualify him (unless specifically mentioned in qualifications for office) but I would like to think it would preclude him from winning. However, I completely understand 4 Aces comment about getting what you want or perhaps deserve but that does not make it palatable to me. I almost never want what I deserve.

Best regards,

RA1

[JKane]

My main concern would be susceptibility to blackmail, and this ass-clown seems to be past that, at least. The only other real concern I can think of is any hypocritical enforcement of relevant laws and/or using his position to not get busted.

So I can think of no reason to automatically blanket bar somebody for such things, especially since his opponent may well have things he's managed to keep secret which gives him vulnerabilities a guy like this doesn't have at all any more. AND another positive, in America's political system at least it might make the candidate unattractive to big business donors. So either they're more responsive to average constituents or (sadly, more likely, now that I think about it) more obedient to whoever does give them money...

[AdamSmith]

Now a drunken rant caught on video...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/toronto-mayor-video-surfaces-drunken-rant

...drip, drip, drip...

[AdamSmith]

November 7, 2013

Toronto’s Rob Ford Problem

Posted by David Macfarlane

The New Yorker

“Toronto is on uncharted waters.”

Such has been the refrain here these past few days. You can hear it from the journalists who cover City Hall, the bureaucrats who work there, and even the city councillors themselves. Nobody has a whole lot of experience with mayors getting caught on video smoking crack. Everybody has been equally speechless when they view an even more damning video, released by the Toronto Star on Thursday, of a deranged Mayor Ford (that’s the only appropriate word) acting like a curious combination of the Cowardly Lion and Al Pacino in “Scarface.” In other words, the people who can generally be relied upon to put the city’s issues into context for the rest of us have peered out from the fore-deck of the municipal ship of state—North America’s fourth largest—only to announce that they have no idea where we are.

As everyone who watches “The Daily Show” or “David Letterman” now sort of knows, Toronto elected Rob Ford to be its sixty-fourth mayor, in 2010. Asking why a city of two and a half million mostly sane people would do such a thing makes for an interesting conversation.

The usual answers have to do with the political divide between urban and suburban notions of what a city should be. Or with the anger that the ordinary folks of the outer city reserve for the opera houses, bicycles, and liberal inclinations of the inner. Often, the discussion turns back to the controversial move, taken in 1998, to amalgamate six associated but distinct municipalities into what’s now known (ominously, I always think) as “the megacity.” Ever since, the old urban center—the polity that, with a certain wistfulness, is still sometimes referred to as “the former City of Toronto”—has been outnumbered by what it used to regard as its suburban satellites.

It is one such former satellite, Etobicoke, that Mayor Rob Ford has always called home.

Before becoming mayor, Ford had been a relatively obscure and isolated city councillor for a decade. He was known mostly for his ample size (Toronto journalists turn themselves in pretzels trying to avoid the most obvious adjective to describe him), his confrontational encounters with the press, and his dogged refusal to spend what he considered the excessively high office budgets given to city councillors. His commitment to frugality was enabled in part by the fact that, even though he styled himself an “ordinary guy” and man of the people, he is, well, rich.

When his (apparently delusional) hope of becoming a football player fizzled out, along with his intention to become a university graduate, he managed to find a well-paid position at his father’s successful label company. After showing very little interest in venturing too far from the woods behind the playing fields of Scarlett Heights High School, it wasn’t a great surprise that Ford decided to become an Etobicoke city councillor. Nor should it have been a surprise that his suburban credentials, conservative values, and family money helped him to convince the residents of Etobicoke, Scarborough, York, East York, and North York that their precious tax dollars were being frittered away at City Hall—which, of course, was downtown.

“Stop the gravy train” became Ford’s rallying cry, and even though the latte-drinking, media-controlling, tax-and-spending élite of the former City of Toronto did not share enthusiastically in the choice, Rob Ford was elected overwhelmingly. He was seen as the champion of the overburdened taxpayer—the suburban purveyor of common sense who, even if he was a little rough around the edges, knew what a dollar is. To this day, as his administration falters, Ford never fails to address his apparently unshakeable core. With no legal mechanism by which to remove him from office unless he is actually convicted of a crime, and with a base of apparently unshakeable supporters, he might actually get reëlected next autumn in order to make good on his promise to save taxpayers money.

So, as you can see, there are any number of ways to approach a conversation about Rob Ford. And in Toronto, during these past few surreal days, it feels as if every single one of them is being tested out, repeatedly, by every single person in the city. You can leave the conversation in one downtown Starbucks, walk fifty or a hundred feet to the next downtown Starbucks, and find yourself immediately back in the middle of the very same discussion. There’s been no lack of community involvement on this one.

But really, when you get right down to the nuts and bolts of the question—Why, exactly, did a reasonable kind of place like Toronto elect its current mayor?—you have to conclude that it doesn’t matter anymore. Why we did it is the least of our problems. The only point worth making at this juncture is that Rob Ford turned out to be a staggeringly bad choice.

The problem is this. Nobody knows what to do with a mayor who will not resign, even though he has ticked most of the boxes in the “You should resign immediately if…” section of the customary understanding between elected officials and their electorates. Such as:

If you smoke crack.

If you sometimes find yourself in the condition that Mayor Ford has now immortalized as “a drunken stupor.”

If you let late-night visitors smoke pot in your City Hall office.

If you consort with criminals.

If people with whom you were recently photographed—in front of a suburban crack house, it should be noted—start turning up dead, or splayed on the ground beneath windows from which they have just mysteriously fallen.

If you publicly malign the reputations of any politician, civil servant, or journalist who (correctly) raises the suspicion that the Mayor has a substance-abuse problem.

If you are seen reeling through the streets of Toronto on several festive occasions while being, in the Mayor’s own vivid description, “hammered.”

If (and it was this offense that seemed to really rattle many Torontonians) you urinate in public—or, to be fair, if you urinate in public enough to be captured on police surveillance cameras.

Oh, and about those police surveillance cameras: you should probably resign as the mayor of Toronto if you are the subject of a costly police investigation—during the same period that you, as mayor, will preside over the upcoming police-budget debates at City Hall.

All this has been particularly worrisome, especially for older voters. As you can imagine. There was a time, not so long ago, when “uncharted waters” and “Toronto” were words that only rarely appeared in the same sentence. Toronto was nothing if not predictable. But times change. And even when it unfolds in slow-motion, there’s nothing very predictable about an unqualified, jaw-dropping political disaster.

For example: I didn’t expect Rob Ford’s confession that yes, as a matter of fact, he did smoke crack—nor did his staff, or the startled media—when, apropos of nothing, the Mayor decided to admit what he’d been denying for six months. After what must have been an interesting internal debate, Ford apparently concluded that attributing his crack smoking to a drunken stupor would appear more mayoral than simply saying he liked to get high. I’m guessing he thought it was just a good time to get it off his chest. Nobody could have guessed that something so legally inconsequential would send so many ships adrift.

But here we are, bobbing along on what feels like a sea of identical conversations. From the literati assembled at this week’s Giller Prize gala in downtown Toronto to the drug dealers of East Etobicoke, Torontonians of all walks of life want to know: Who is the man in the first video whose off-screen voice goads Mayor Rob Ford, crack pipe in hand, to launch into his now-infamous homophobic and racist remarks? What’s on the mysterious second video? Is there now a third video? (At this stage, anything is possible.) Which is less forgivable: extortion, or urinating on a tree in a park? These are the kinds of questions—to our considerable surprise—that we find ourselves asking these days.

But no historian has stepped forward to point out a precedent. No elder statesman has reminded us of some previous historical episode with parallels to Toronto’s current crisis. It’s the one thing on which most people in Toronto agree. We are way out of sight of land.

David Macfarlane is a writer based in Toronto. A U.S. edition of his novel “The Figures of Beauty” will be published by HarperCollins next fall.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/torontos-rob-ford-problem.html

[AdamSmith]

Rob Ford crack scandal Q&A: 'There will be more revelations. That is certain'

Robyn Doolittle is one of three journalists to have seen the video of Rob Ford reportedly smoking a crack pipe. Now that the story has become an international sensation, she explains what's next

• Ruth Spencer
• theguardian.com, Friday 8 November 2013 11.46 EST

'You can't impeach a mayor. The only way he can be removed is if he misses three consecutive council meetings.' Photo: Mark Blinch /Reuters

On May 3, Toronto Star urban affairs reporter Robyn Doolittle sat in a car in a parking lot in Toronto and saw something that would spark a political scandal of epic proportions: a cell phone video of mayor Rob Ford "rambling, slurring, stuttering, jerking around on his chair, smoking from a crack pipe". Nearly five months later, the story has become an international sensation. Ford has admitted to using crack, and a second video clip has surfaced online, this time showing the mayor ranting and making violent threats. Now, many are wondering what happens next.

The Guardian spoke with Doolittle (@RobynDoolittle on Twitter) about how she sees things playing out for the mayor, and what kind of an impact the scandal has had on the city. Now that's she's answered our questions, it's your turn. Robyn will answer reader questions about the Ford scandal this afternoon. Toss your questions in the comments below and check back later to read her responses. Update: As Robyn's responses will come in via email, I'll add them to this blog post over the next hour.

How do normal people in Toronto feel about the events of the last week? We've heard reports of rising approval ratings – can you help us understand how that could be?

There has been a lot of talk – on Twitter and American late night television – about a poll, which showed Mayor Ford's approval rating go up 5 points after police chief Bill Blair announced the service had obtained the crack video. It's hard to know where the public stands. The poll was taken Halloween night and was small. I can say that, anecdotally, people seem embarrassed and very concerned for the mayor's health.

How powerful is the mayor's position in Toronto, anyway? Does the city's government function normally while he's holding all these press conferences? What's the impact of this scandal been on the city itself?

Toronto, unlike somewhere like New York or Chicago, doesn't have a "strong mayor" system. Mayor Ford doesn't have veto power or anything like that. He's just one vote out of 45 members of council. The mayor's power comes from influence and right now; he has none with any of the city councillors – except of course his brother, Doug.

Robyn Doolittle is one of three journalists to have seen the video of Rob Ford reportedly smoking a crack pipe. Photograph: /Twitter.com/RobynDoolittle

Is it true that everyone in Toronto pretty much hated Rob Ford from the beginning of his term? If so, how did he get elected anyway?

That's definitely not true. Rob Ford didn't just win the 2010 election, he won by a landslide. People elected him knowing he'd had some problems – he'd been charged with domestic assault, though it was dropped, he had a temper, he'd been thrown out of a hockey game for drunkenly telling off a couple in the audience – but they liked his message. Ford is a populist. He built a brand fighting perks, like free food at council meetings and complimentary baseball tickets for officials. He promised to cut the waste at city hall and keep taxes low. It turned out he was battling some serious demons at the same time.

You just wrote a fascinating account of the day you first saw the video of Ford smoking crack. Describe for us what it's been like waiting for him to admit the truth?

I think at the Star we've really just focused on getting the real story out there. The video was one piece. Then we went on to investigate the photo of Ford in front of a crack house. The people he's been spending time with. His connections to a gang known as the Dixon City Bloods. We knew if we kept at it the truth would come out.

So where do things stand now for the Mayor, in terms of this investigation? How do you see things unfolding over the next few weeks?

It's so hard to know. There will be more revelations. That is certain. There are hundreds of pages of search warrant documents related to the police investigation of Ford and his activities. There is another video, according to Blair. For me what will be interesting is how council handles it. If he won't resign, what will they do?

Help us wrap our heads around the fact that Rob Ford is still mayor. How is this possible? Why hasn't he been removed – or stepped down?

You can't impeach a mayor. The only way he can be removed is if he misses three consecutive council meetings – so if he was in jail, for example. Kathleen Wynne, the premier of Ontario, could step in, but she is unlikely to do that for political reasons. She is a Liberal. Ford is a Conservative. Both municipal and provincial politics are worried about the precedent that might set. And Ford has indicated he won't resign. So here we are.

What are the possible outcomes for Ford and the city of Toronto? What do you think is most likely?

With this story, I won't even hazard a guess.

Reader Q&A

Q:

TheDogShouterer

08 November 2013 5:01pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

You say that Kathleen Wynne is unlikely to step in and fire Ford for political reasons. Do you think she is right not to do so? How well is she serving the 4 million Ontario residents who live in Toronto by sitting on her hands?

A: It's not really my place to say. I'm just covering this story. I tell you that several prominent political people I've spoken who - who don't care for Rob Ford - are very uncomfortable with the idea of removing a democratically elected mayor. Many people believe only voters have that right.

Q:

Drella87

08 November 2013 5:21pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

Robyn, More and more attention has started to focus on Doug Ford's role and how his advice has caused the Mayor more problems then helped him through this, do you see the Mayor breaking away from Doug's influence at any time soon?

(Great work btw, and looking forward to the book)

A: It's not that simple. They have a very complicated relationship. This is something I'll be exploring in my book, Crazy Town, which is due out next February. They are bound to each other and the Ford brand. They can't break away.

Q:

TheDogShouterer

08 November 2013 5:52pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

Do you think the right authority to investigate Rob Ford's illegal activities is the Toronto Police Service? Is there a point at which the TPS should hand over the cases to a body not funded by the city, such as the RCMP?

A: Again it's not my place to say. Earlier this year, Toronto police were investigating a gang operating in the north end of the city and as part of that investigation, they came across a Rob Ford connection. After the Star ran its piece about the crack video, they launched a separate investigation called Project Brazen 2.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/rob-ford-scandal-robyn-doolittle

[AdamSmith]

Rob Ford crack video story started with an anonymous early morning phone call to a reporter

How the story of the crack video came to light

Dale Brazao / Toronto Star Order this photo

Toronto Star reporter Robyn Doolittle sits in a car to watch the Rob Ford crack video.

By: Robyn Doolittle City Hall, Published on Wed Nov 06 2013

The Star

It was 9 a.m. Easter morning. I was lying in bed, trying to sleep in, when my cellphone started to ring. I grimaced. No one but my dad would be calling so early on a holiday.

Irritated, I chucked off the covers and shuffled into the kitchen, where my phone was shaking across the table. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Robyn speaking,” I muttered.

“I need to meet with you,” said a deep voice I’d never heard before.

“Okay. What about?”

There was a pause.

“I have some information I think you’d like to see,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

I’d been getting a few of these calls over the last week.

On March 26, 2013 — six days earlier — Kevin Donovan and I had written an explosive story about Mayor Rob Ford’s alcohol problem. Five sources, including current and former members of Ford’s staff, had told the Star that they’d been trying to get the mayor into a treatment facility for a substance abuse issue for the last year. We’d also reported that the mayor had been asked to leave the Garrison military ball after showing up impaired.

“You need to give me some sense of what we’re talking about before I meet with you,” I said.

He told me he had incriminating video of “a prominent Toronto politician,” but wouldn’t say who was in it or what they were doing.

Odds are this was a bad tip. Then again, there was something about his voice. He sounded nervous.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the deal. It’s Easter Monday and I’m off, so I don’t have access to a work car. If you want to meet today we can meet at a coffee shop in the west end. Or we can wait until tomorrow and I can drive out to you.”

“It’s no problem,” he said immediately. “I’ll come to you.”

The fact that he was willing to make the trip was encouraging.

Three hours later, I was standing outside a Starbucks on Queen Street West.

“Robyn?”

I turned around and came face to face with clean-cut guy, who looked about my age — somewhere in his late twenties. He was big, like a college football player, and well dressed. Sort of business casual meets street style, if that’s at all possible. He was carrying an iPad.

“Nice to meet you,” I said as we shook hands.

We decided to walk to a nearby park for some privacy.

“So?” I said. “What did you want to tell me?”

As we walked up a leafy street towards the park, he asked if I could protect him. He worked with youth in his community in Rexdale. He was coming to me on someone else’s behalf, a young drug dealer. I promised to protect his identity.

He wanted to know if I was required to hand over evidence of a crime to police. I told him that morally, if someone was in danger, I would feel compelled to try to prevent someone from being harmed. He told me it was nothing like that. It was about drug use. I told him I would not turn over evidence of drug use to police.

He seemed satisfied.

“What I’m about to tell you,” he began, “will sound unbelievable.” He told me he’d read the story about the Garrison ball and Ford’s drinking.

“It’s much worse than that,” he said. He went on to tell me that there was a video of the mayor smoking crack cocaine and he had it.

“I can’t let you see it yet,” he said. “But I brought this.”

He pulled out his iPad and swiped open the screen. At this point we’d reached the park. We took a seat on a bench at the south end of a small soccer field. He thumbed around for a minute and then passed me the screen.

An after-hours photo of Ford

There was a photo of the mayor, grinning in a dark grey sweatshirt and baggy pants, linked arm in arm with three young men in front of a yellow brick bungalow. One of the guys was giving the camera the finger and holding a beer bottle. Another was flashing a “west-side” gesture. There was snow on the ground and all three men were in coats. Ford was just wearing his sweater.

The mayor takes lots of photos with people, but he’s never in casual clothing. It was clearly taken after work hours at night.

“That one” — he pointed to the hooded man with the beer bottle — “is Anthony Smith. He was killed outside Loki night club last week.”

He told me the young man on the far right side of the photo had been shot in the same incident. But he wouldn’t give me anyone else’s name and he wouldn’t say where the photo was taken.

“What about the video?” The photo had nothing to do with the video, except that it was shot in the house. And that the house is a crack house.

He told me the footage was about a minute and a half long, that it was well lit, with perfect resolution and that it clearly showed the mayor inhaling from a crack pipe. He told me Ford could also be heard calling Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau “a fag,” and that at one point, during a conversation about his Don Bosco football team, the mayor mumbles something like “f---ing minorities.”

The man told me he didn’t shoot the video. A dealer in Rexdale, one of the youths he’d been mentoring, had taken it. The footage was shot in the last six months. He alleged the dealer was still selling to the mayor.

“Can I see the video?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, but only if the Star would pay for it. “It’s worth $100,000.”

I nearly laughed.

“Are you serious?”

He was dead serious.

I asked him to sit tight for a moment. I called Star editor-in-chief Michael Cooke.

I told Cooke exactly what the man had told me.

“Can you bring him to the newsroom?” Cooke asked.

The man agreed to go to 1 Yonge St. He offered to drive me. I wanted to see his car and his licence plate so we could run a check, but I also didn’t want to put myself in an unsafe situation. Decisions, decisions.

“Sure, that’d be great if you could drive,” I said.

He was parked in an alley. When he pointed to the four-door sedan, I fired Cooke a text message with a description of the car and his plate.

We made small talk on the way to the Star newsroom. He seemed like a nice enough guy. He told me he had gotten to know a lot of the “kids” — these guys were really in their late teens to mid-twenties — up in the Dixon Road and Kipling Avenue area. They were good guys, he said, but they’d made mistakes. Now they wanted out. Anthony Smith’s death had them scared. Ford was exploiting them, he told me.

“I just really want the story out there. It has to get out there. People need to know about this.”

“If you really want the story out there, why not just give us the video?” I asked.

We parked in the front lot at the Star, then took the elevator to the fifth floor newsroom in silence. City editor Irene Gentle and Cooke were in the north-west boardroom. We didn’t waste any time.

He told them the same story he’d told me. He showed them the photo. And he made the pitch for his ransom one more time.

“Well, let’s get one thing straight right now,” Cooke said. “You’re not going to get $100,000. Not even close. Now, there might be some price, but before we even talk about what it’s worth, we need to see the video.”

The man, who from then on became known as the broker, promised to talk to his guys and get back to us.

I walked him to his car.

We filled in Donovan, who was away on vacation.

Later that night, reporter Jesse McLean and I met with the broker. It would be one of half a dozen meetings over the next month. We started looking into the group of guys trying to sell the video and the area we believed the footage was filmed. Meanwhile, Star editors began holding nearly daily meetings in the northwest boardroom about what to do if it was real.

If this video was real — and that was a big if — it was a matter of immense public interest. If the mayor of Toronto, the man in charge of the fourth largest city in North America, one of the largest governments in Canada, and a $10-billion budget, was in fact using crack cocaine, the implications were endless. He opened himself up to blackmail. It called into question his judgment, his state of mind, his health. How can a man mixed up in crack cocaine and the underworld of Toronto have partial control over the police budget?

Ford himself has spoken out harshly about drug dealers, gang culture and crack use as both a councillor and a mayor.

In 2005, when the city was considering handing out clean “crack kits” to addicts in order to help prevent the spread of disease, Ford declared that “tough love” was the only way to deal with drug users. Then, in July 2012, Ford said it was time “to declare war” on “thugs.” He vowed to run them out of the city.

If Rob Ford was using crack, Toronto needed to know. Maybe it was worth paying something for the good of the city.

On the other hand, the people trying to sell us the video seemed to be thugs. How could we ethically hand over $100,000 in cash to men who admitted to being crack cocaine dealers? As managing editor Jane Davenport said in one meeting, “What if they buy a gun and kill someone with it?”

Everyone at the Star agreed: it was impossible to know what we should do until we saw the footage and confirmed it was real. So that became the goal. The problem was that the broker didn’t want to show us the video until we promised to buy it. In that sense, it was a Catch 22.

As the weeks went by, and as McLean and I spent more and more time in Rexdale, I started to believe there was a video. We’d been subtly grilling the broker for weeks on both his personal life, the brick house, the men trying to sell the footage and Ford’s involvement in all of it. The answers never changed. It seemed like he was going to a lot of trouble meeting with us if it was made up. We met some of his friends. We asked them about the video, the house, the players involved. The answers all lined up.

But we never seemed to be getting any closer to seeing the footage. The conversation always came back around to money. Twice, the broker arranged for us to watch the video, but the dealer always cancelled at the last minute. While McLean and I did this, investigative editor Kevin Donovan began digging from the other side, building a profile of the many suspicious characters in the mayor’s life.

Back at the Star, we discussed our options. Maybe there was some sort of scholarship fund we could create for them? Everything seemed too complicated.

By the end of April, the broker was frustrated. The Star was still refusing to even discuss money until we saw the footage. I felt they were about to disappear.

I talked to Cooke about it: “They’re never going to let us see it if we don’t at least say we might buy it.”

We’d tried to avoid uttering those words. But the situation was getting desperate.

It became clear we couldn’t see the video without discussing what it was worth.

“Do it,” said Cooke.

I phoned the broker.

In that case, he said, we could watch the footage that week.

On May 3, nearly a month to the day after the broker first called, Donovan and I were sitting in a car in front of the Royal Bank in a grungy plaza on Dixon Road around 10:30 p.m.

The broker was late and we were beginning to think this was another false alarm.

“God, he better show up this time,” I said to Donovan.

Just as I was becoming convinced we were being stood up — again — a black sedan pulled up by our car. My phone rang. It was him.

“Leave your cellphones. No bags. No purses. And get in.”

He drove us to a parking lot behind the six Dixon towers. We parked behind 320 Dixon, which a little more than a month later would be ground zero in Project Traveller’s massive guns and gangs raid.

The broker left and a few minutes later returned. The dealer was coming. The man who got in the car, who the Star has since identified as Mohamed Siad, looked nervous. He looked over his shoulder. He didn’t want to talk.

He pulled out a black iPhone. At first, he didn’t want to play the sound — it was “extra,” he said — but we convinced him we needed to hear the sound in order to assess the value of the footage.

Siad relented.

He hit play. There was no question. There was Mayor Rob Ford, rambling, slurring, stuttering, jerking around on his chair, smoking from a crack pipe.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/11/06/rob_ford_crack_video_story_started_with_an_anonymous_early_morning_phone_call_to_a_reporter.html

[AdamSmith]

A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade.

The Star's Kevin Donovan and Robyn Doolittle have seen the video in question. They explain what they saw. Originally posted in May, 2013.

By: Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan Staff Reporters, Published on Thu May 16 2013

The Star

Public Editor Note: This article was edited from a previous version to remove several unnecessary “Somali” references. The Star has apologized for using “Somali” too heavily in its first report. See the May 24 Public Editor column for further explanation.

(Video at http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/05/16/toronto_mayor_rob_ford_in_crack_cocaine_video_scandal.html)

A cellphone video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine is being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade.

Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.

“I’m f---ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just f---ing minorities.”

The Star had no way to verify the authenticity of the video, which appears to clearly show Ford in a well-lit room. The Star was told the video was shot during the past winter at a house south of Dixon Rd. and Kipling Avenue. What follows is an account based on what both reporters viewed on the video screen. Attempts to reach the mayor and members of his staff to get comment on this story were unsuccessful.

A lawyer retained by Ford, Dennis Morris, said that Thursday evening’s publication by the U.S.-based Gawker website of some details related to the video was “false and defamatory.” Morris told the Star that by viewing any video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. “How can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Morris said.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/05/16/toronto_mayor_rob_ford_in_crack_cocaine_video_scandal.html

[AdamSmith]

In Defense Of Rob Ford: The World’s Greatest Mayor

Don’t let the media deceive you!

posted on

November 8, 2013 at 4:14pm EST

Benny Johnson

BuzzFeed Staff

So, the Mayor of Toronto smokes some recreational crack.

He is not an addict. So, GET OVER IT.

Via blogto.com

And he wants to kill people. SO WHAT?!?

Via blogto.com

Why is everyone forgetting that Rob Ford is the BEST mayor on the planet?

Via blogto.com

The media is NOT telling you the whole story.

Did you know he is a spectacular bongo player?

Via blogto.com

Probably not. You are just focused on that one time he accidentally smoked crack.

He kicked Hulk Hogan’s ass without even trying.

Via blogto.com

Don’t front, Hulk.

He is very culturally sensitive.

Even when he has no clue what is going on.

He holds events with girls in cabbage bikinis. Did you hear me?! CABBAGE BIKINIS.

Eat your heart out.

During that event he weighed himself, then he tripped off the stage and rolled his ankle.

blogto.com

blogto.com

He coaches a football team!

Via vice.com

When was the last time your mayor coached a sports team?

And, like, he is really good at football.

Via joeydevilla.com

So shut your mouth.

He MEANT to do this. It’s his move.

Did you need that action from another angle?

He never shies away from the media.

He is the best campaigner ever.

His supporters photobombed this live taping of a Toronto morning show.

He made himself Superman stopping a train in a campaign ad.

When a reporter calls him a bad name…

Via orwellsbastard.blogspot.com

He chases the reporter out of the building while questioning his manhood.

orwellsbastard.blogspot.com

orwellsbastard.blogspot.com

...Continued at http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/in-defense-of-rob-ford-the-worlds-greatest-mayor

[RA1]

I believe that "thing" ones stands on to be weighed is called a platform, not a stage; but, in the case it is a mayor (or any pol) being weighed I guess it is a stage.

Best regards,

RA1