Socraticsilence, in the recent Doug Ford post, asks:
So admittedly this is an outsiders perspective but I’ve always gotten the idea from you and other Canadian political commentators that Rob Ford is an amiable boob, a well-meaning moron with a bit of a mean streak but not overtly cruel and/or calculating- kind of a fat Canadian Dubya– right down to the inheriting everything and not realizing his privilege. So I guess what I’m asking is, and I don’t want to stretch the analogy too far here- is Doug, Rob’s Cheney– the competent, cruel, bloodless guy behind the power?
If that is the idea you have gotten, then Canadians have misrepresented Rob Ford to you. Ford is not an “amiable boob.” He is friendly enough, I suppose, but not so dramatically that he is one of those people who engenders joie de vivre in all he meets or anything like that. Ford is extremely stupid but he is also very mean – a callous dunce who doesn’t have the imagination to even consider other people’s viewpoints much less sympathize with them. His goodwill is essentially predicated on his own unmerited high self-opinion; he lives in a black and white world where he is always the good guy and can always, always justify the stupid shit he pulls off. I am quite sure that right now he totally believes he is being wronged in this crack video scandal, despite that it is pretty obvious now that A) the video exists and B) he is lying through his teeth about that.
As for Doug, he is not bloodless and he is barely competent. Cheney thinks about what he says before he says it. Doug Ford doesn’t think about anything and has most of his brother’s faults. He is only “competent” when compared to his idiot brother, who really does set a new low for all things related to governance, and any buff in reputation he gets is largely the result of being “the less stupid one” so damned often.
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Am I the only one who can’t access any of the Gawker websites right now? Because I went to the main one after seeing that their crowdfunding effort hit its goal this morning, and it just didn’t give me anything at all. It could just be my distraction-blocking software acting up, I guess.
Ford is extremely stupid but he is also very mean – a callous dunce who doesn’t have the imagination to even consider other people’s viewpoints much less sympathize with them. His goodwill is essentially predicated on his own unmerited high self-opinion; he lives in a black and white world where he is always the good guy and can always, always justify the stupid shit he pulls off.
…so in other words, he really is just like G.W. Bush.
@MGK ” Ford is extremely stupid but he is also very mean – a callous dunce who doesn’t have the imagination to even consider other people’s viewpoints much less sympathize with them. His goodwill is essentially predicated on his own unmerited high self-opinion; he lives in a black and white world where he is always the good guy and can always, always justify the stupid shit he pulls off. I am quite sure that right now he totally believes he is being wronged in this crack video scandal, despite that it is pretty obvious now that A) the video exists and B) he is lying through his teeth about that.”
Look, Doug Ford may not be Cheney, but that Rob Ford precis pretty much describes the former decider-in-chief. Mean & petty? Check. Dunce? Check. A willful denial about other people’s viewpoints? An unmerited, high self-opinion? A black and white worldview, lacking nuance? A complete stonewalling of admitting any mistakes? Taking credit for any nearby accomplishments? Check, check, check and mate.
Replace “crack” with WMDs in Iraq (or Iraq’s connection to AQ) to see the same indignant, persecuted, endless denial.
It’s the exact same playbook.
I know it’s hard for us on the American left to believe, and part of that is because the American press is sold on this weird fairy tale about Ford being competent about budgets (even Cracked.com swallowed and regurgitated that) but Rob Ford is actually dumber and meaner than G.W. Bush.
People who actively loathed Bush would admit that, in person, he was extremely hard to dislike. He could literally walk into a room of a few dozen people he’d never met before and, by the end of the night, have memorized every name and face there. It was mostly facade, but Rob Ford can’t even manage to FAKE being a pleasant human being.
Let’s strain a metaphor: Bush was your awful high school principal that would suspend you for trying to start a GSA… but Ford’s that one coach that’s fucking students during lunch and encouraging kids to gay bash you during gym.
Rob does set the bar pretty low for stupidity and incompetence, so by comparison, Doug’s smarter, but he could be outwitted by a four year old. In the end, both of them blame others- particularly the media and left wing conspiracies- for their problems. Not the sort of people you’d trust.
@William Kendall: Even more particularly the Toronto Star, probably because it’s the most conspicuous intersection of ‘news media’ and ‘left wing politics’ in Toronto. Doug repeatedly insisting, over the shouts of reporters, that the crack video story was ‘from one media outlet’ during his brief Q&A after Rob’s long-delayed denial speech is maybe the most singularly Doug Fordey Doug Ford moment to be caught on camera, in part because it is legitimately hard to judge if he’s intentionally playing the Toronto Star conspiracy card to play to their base or if he’s actually that disinterested in the reality of the situation himself. I’ve been thinking about it since it happened, and I’m still fifty/fifty on it (conversely, with Rob I’d be all but certain he was buying his own bullshit).
Ways Ford and Dubya are alike:
– sense of entitlement completely out of whack with their contributions to society
– both born to wealthy families and overshadowed by siblings seen as the “real” brains in the family
– have only their family connections to thank for getting as far they did
– completely incurious about anything outside their interests
– prone to using sports metaphors and thinking in black/white terms
– prone to gaffes and malapropisms that amuse/embarrass the “elite” folks
– propped up by low-wattage voters who value “stickin’ it to (insert hated group of choice)” over accountability and getting things done
– completely incapable of demonstrating any introspection or regret for their actions
Ways in which they’re different:
– Bush had the ability to be quite nice in person, a trait that made him useful to the republican overlords; Ford is okay in his comfort zone with “hard-working taxpayers,” but cannot fake civility to save his life
– Bush went to Yale (albeit just scraped by); Ford dropped out of first year at Carleton U (lovingly referred to as “Last Chance U” by Canadians)
– Bush was surrounded by people who, regardless of your politics, had the smarts needed to advise a president; Ford has brother Doug and a lawyer who supposedly told him to clam up for a week after the video story came out
– Bush had a bottomed-out moment and gave up the drugs and booze when he found Jesus; we’re still waiting for Ford to get there. And when he does, it’s a pretty safe bet that Jesus won’t see him first.
@Mitchell: Q: What’s the same between Carleton and Ottawa students? A: They both applied to UOttawa.
(I kid, I kid.)
I don’t know how MGK feels about Carleton these days, but he and I were both undergrads there (well before his more recent fancy lawyerin’ school days). It’s no Yale, but it doesn’t let in a lot of people like Rob Ford anymore.
Mitchell, some of the ways in which they are different have more to do with the level at which they are operating. Yes, Ford didn’t put together the same “crack” (Rumsfeld?!) team of advisers that Bush did, but that is because he is only a level 4 Mayor, not a level 15 World Leader.
Maybe I have watched too much Daily Show, but Bush always seemed as capable as Ford of being mean and petty. He (& his handlers) insisted on lockstep loyalty, punished dissension, and please remember the little chuckle when he knew he was getting away with bad things, like torture. His handlers were fantastic at mostly keeping the meanness beneath the covers. He had a much better veneer of niceness than Ford.
I guess smirking while defending torture counts for more “meanness” in my book than Ford blurting out a racial epithet. Although Bush had a reputation for more charisma than Ford, their shared lack of dismay during crises shines through all too clearly despite their different levels of polish. Bush was cheerful when he was clearing brush, but concluding he was a nice person shows a dismal lack of understanding of how photo ops work.
Wow. I for one did not read your description as “amiable boob.” “Self-important, vindictive, malicious, anti-city-center son of suburbia,” more like.
@Tristan: I think at this stage, both of them are detached from reality.