Rob Ford Lawyers Up

As if we needed yet another reason not to vote for Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.

(Apologies if this is already well trod ground. We’ve been roughing it in the bushes for the last few days and this only hit our radar this morning.)

It seems that the blustery councillor and mayoral hopeful is as thin-skinned as he is thick-headed. Last week Team Rob Ford took exception to a less than flattering but painfully obvious parody blog, robfordmayor.com, and had its lawyers slap a cease-and-desist order on it, demanding an immediate adherence to the following:

1. Disable and remove all material from the website www.robfordmayor.com;
2. Confirm in writing that you will not publish similar infringing material in the future;
3. Publish and unqualified apology to Mr. Ford; and,
4. Provide us with the identity of the person who registered and published on www.robfordmayor.com, as this person would be the proper defendant in any potential court action, and we would not be able to access his/her true identity without this disclosure from you.

For all you out there still misguidedly operating under the pretension that Rob Ford is all about looking out for the little guy, I have two words for you: McCague Borlack.

This is the quintessential behaviour of a bully. A master of dishing it out but possessing zero tolerance when on the receiving end of taunts and mockery and ridicule. Rob Ford has stood up in council and derided cyclists who get into accidents with cars (although his heart does go out to them) and those afflicted with HIV-AIDS as perpetrators of their own afflictions. Yet, in the face of schoolyard, locker room humour, he hightails it to hide behind his lawyers. Mommy, mommy. Stop them. They’re making fun of me.

What kind of fortress of solitude has superhero Rob Ford been dwelling in for the last decade or so? You step into the public spotlight and the insults and ridicule just comes with the territory. That’s been the case long before the interwebs ever came into being and, to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau, much better men than Rob Ford have been called much worse things throughout the annals of history.

More disturbing still, reading over the order issued to the server of www.robfordmayor.com, it seems that Rob Ford may actually believe some of the shit he’s trying to pedal to the voting public during this campaign. It starts like a prospective fundraising letter. Mr. Ford has been the Councillor representing Ward 2 in North Etobicoke since 2000, and he is one of the hardest working councillors in Toronto. Due to his extensive work in the community, Mr. Ford has become well-known for superlative and conscientious work as a public servant, businessman, volunteer and family man. Understandably, his reputation is very important to him. [bolding very definitely ours].

Errr… Mr. Ford’s “reputation is very important to him”? Can this be the same Rob Ford who, after complaints about his drunken outburst at a Leafs’ game 4 years ago, first lied about being there and then issued a public apology, stating that, hey, he was only human. Now his reputation’s important to him? Why the change? Oh right. He’s running for mayor.

As a candidate seeking that office and “one of the hardest working councillors in Toronto” — was lawyer Anthony Cole trying to summon up images of James Brown with that turn of phrase? – one might think Rob Ford and his team would have more important things on their plate other than trolling the internet, trying to quash what even the creator of robfordmayor.com referred to as a “low grade satire’. It reveals an unsettling streak of small-minded pettiness. In Rob Ford’s case, it also exposes the lie at the heart of his common man appeal. The emperor has no clothes and when the people pointed that out, he lawyered up and threatened them with libel suits. How very Conrad Black of Rob Ford.

— barristerly and solicitorly submitted by Cityslikr