Dear Mayor Rob Ford:
Recently, Sue Edworthy wrote a thoughtful and friendly letter to you. It was a thoroughly positive letter, given that it was written in response to you skipping out on an executive meeting of city council so that you could go coach football. Ms. Edworthy has, very nicely I might add, suggested that perhaps you would be happier if you made your foundation which helps underprivileged kids play football your life’s work, which dovetails neatly with the conflict of interest charges you face for using city resources to solicit donations to said foundation.
She’s right. But her letter to you is a classic “mom letter.” And this is the thing: you do not deserve positive reinforcement for its own sake at this stage in your life. You are a grown-ass man, in years if nothing else. God knows that, as the privileged son of a wealthy family, growing up and acting like an adult has always been something you treated as sort of an optional extra. And I’m certain that the useless son of a rich and connected family will find no shortage of donors for his nonprofit, because you were lucky enough to be born into a class that can almost always find something for its less talented children to do, and at least you’re good at coaching football (by all accounts).
But you aren’t a football coach first and foremost, no matter how much you might like coaching football (and I’m sure it is rewarding). You are the fucking Mayor of fucking Toronto. You ran a long and dirty campaign to become Mayor. You spent an extremely large amount of money to become Mayor – most of which, needless to say, was other people’s money. Every one of those people should take it as a personal insult when you blow off work – and that is exactly what you were doing.
I’m sure you don’t like being Mayor of Toronto any more. I’m quite sure you didn’t realize what you were getting into when you decided to run for Mayor; I’m sure you didn’t understand what the position entails and in fact am still sure you don’t (I strongly suspect you think the entire job consists of taking constituent phonecalls, like you’re some really, really well-paid customer service representative). Tough. I don’t care. You’re the Mayor. Do your fucking job. Don’t like it? Well, then, maybe you should quit. Ms. Edworthy was quite right about that: if you don’t want to do the job, you could at least have the courtesy to hand it over to someone who won’t half-ass it the way you’re half-assing it. That’s the choice most everybody else has every day: do your job or quit. Most of us just do our jobs even when it’s on a day we don’t want to be doing them, and for those of us where it becomes unbearable, we quit (and generally we don’t have the assurance that you do that someone will come along to make sure there’s something for you to do).
But if you’re going to remain Mayor (assuming you don’t get booted for that conflict of interest violation – and I note that 55 percent of Torontonians have said they would be happy to see you get the boot on a technicality, so please understand you would not win an emergency election), and it certainly seems like you want to keep being Mayor even if you don’t like doing the actual job – then you have to do the work. This might seem like a dreadfully obvious thing to say, but apparently you need it said to you, because you are an enormous bawling child of a man. Do the job or go home. You’re already quite probably the least effective Mayor in the city’s history (and given that we had Mel Lastman in charge less than a decade ago that really says a lot); leaving early won’t tarnish your reputation further because there is simply nothing left to tarnish.
Related Articles
13 users responded in this post
I have no doubt 55 percent of Toronto wants to see him gone; the question is, how are those 55 percent distributed amongst the city’s ridings? Last election, roughly 200% of downtown voted against Ford and he still won. 🙁
Gotta love how he ran on “Cut the gravy train” and now we learn he’s hired special advisors on his mayoral staff that do nothing but help run his football team.
Meanwhile, programs that help at-risk youth = “Hug-a-Thug”. Programs that help at-risk youth help Ford win football games = essential good work. Blech.
, Sue Edworthy wrote a thoughtful and friendly you.
Should that be “letter to you”?
foxed
So basically Rob Ford is Bobby Newport from Parks and Rec, minus the good nature, but he actually won the election.
Sort of. Rob Ford ran on vague promises of ‘cleaning up City Hall’ by eliminating wasteful spending, implying a level of incompetence and/or corruption that he would also fix. Somehow.
The funny thing is that the Fords have always been so critical of people they perceive as being lazy or not working hard (union members, protesters, etc) and extol the virtues of hardworking people. Rob may work hard, but not necessarily at his actual job.
Uh oh, MGK. You’ve unleashed the monster now. Brother Doug will be along shortly to “come after you,” same way he threatened the very female (and, I believe, pregnant) G&M reporter who wrote today’s story on Ford’s special assistants.
For real, how is it The Daily Show hasn’t done a segment yet on these two bozos? There cant be anything in the US that compares to this level of idiocy.
Mitchell: Well, they also managed to mostly miss Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick racking up 48 felony corruption charges, so it might just be an issue of them focusing on Federal level US politics. (And New York City politics, due to their filming location)
So….not a fan?
Mitchell: You’re kidding, right? This isn’t even news in the U.S. “I avoided my job as mayor to coach football” is something that’ll get you elected in America.
Y’know, when I read about Ford blowing off a meeting to coach football, my first thought was, “Oooooooooh, can’t wait to see what mightygodking has to say about that.” Thanks for not disappointing. 🙂
The man is a bloody joke. An idiot. A buffoon. He could pass for Mussolini on a bad day. And his dolt of a brother Doug is just as dense.
I never would have thought Toronto could have voted in a mayor who was more of a joke than Mel Lastman. This guy makes Lastman look like the most dignified, refined guy in the room.
God bless.