There is much to be said about the Toronto Sun's front page story today about Rob Ford.
To start, Kory Teneycke's influence at the paper is clearly being felt immediately. I mean, a right-wing rag going after the most right-wing candidate in the race? Oooh, wait, this is kind of off-script for the new Fox North evil empire, isn't it?
But this Sue-Anne Levy reporter who broke the story - she's one of the legacy socialist reporters who Kory inherited and will most likely be shown the door for ambushing a worthy Conservative, n'est pas? (for those who don't pay attention to Toronto politics, Levy ran for Tim Hudak in a recent by-election and is many things but left-wing is not one of them).
So let's assume that neither the Sun nor Levy were "out to get" Ford or "ambush" him for any nefarious reasons. The basis of her story isn't heresy or any unnamed sources. She's got a 52-minute tape of Ford and Dieter Doneit-Henderson on the evening of June 4th. Again, let's assume the tape is legitimate and since this isn't Stephen Harper, the tape hasn't been doctored.
So here are the relevant facts:
"[Doneit-Henderson]a 30-year-old gay married man admits to having taken 14 mg of OxyContin, a powerful and addictive pain killer, and 150 mg of Fentynal a day to deal with the pain of a fractured rib and fibromyalgia.
After revealing to Ford that the last doctor he had gone to refused to give him more OxyContin, the councillor at first suggests he get it on the street."
Full stop. Rob Ford suggested to a man in pain that he should go out on the street and buy illegal drugs. If rob Ford was running on a Libertarian, legalise drugs - in particular for those in pain - platform, I could buy that this was a well meaning form of vigilanty local work. Needless to say, Rob Ford isn't that candidate. he's the opposite.
The key point here though is based on Levy's story, the person who raised the notion of buying any illegal drugs was Ford, not Doneit-Henderson making the notion that this was all a set-up a bit hard to understand.
It gets better:
"Later in the conversation Doneit-Henderson asks if Ford himself can find him some OxyContin, and Ford responds more than once that he'll try, asking how much it goes for on the street."
Ford will do his best to help Doneit-Henderson to score the drugs on the street. What a great guy. It continues:
"When the man suggests he needs only two or three or four of the pills to "kill the pain," Ford asks him to leave it with him and he'll "ask people on the street" to see what he can do...."I'll try buddy, I'll try ..."
So what's Ford's defence for all of this? There are two. Number one:
"Wednesday, Ford told the Sun he never intended to actually purchase drugs for Doneit-Henderson.
"I feel set up," he said, suggesting someone's out to get him because he's in first place in the most recent polls. "I went above and beyond to try to help him."
It was all a set-up because he's now in first place. Of course, the polls with him in first place came out this week so on June 4th (when the "set-up" took place) this was an anticipatory set-up. A fiendish play by the Sun. Moreover, if it was a set-up pure and simple then (a) why did FORD raise the whole notion of getting illegal drugs in the first place not the nark?; and (b) what does Ford mean by "I went above and beyond to try to help him." if this was all a bizarre sting opperation? That takes us to defence number two:
"He said he told the man whatever he wanted to hear in the 52-minute conversation because it started to concern him that Doneit-Henderson knew where he lived with his young family and was starting to become more threatening."
He told the man whatever he wanted to hear. Oh my. Why? Because the big, burly Ford felt threatened by Doneit-Henderson.
This whole episode goes directly to Ford's character. This wasn't a set-up, it wasn't a sting operation but it is further proof that Rob Ford is not fit to be Toronto's mayor. To those who love Ford, I'm sure it will be quickly dismissed as more evidence that the elites of Toronto are out to get him. The reality is Rob Ford is his own worse enemy as he has shown once again in this incident.