Stop the Presses!

I was right in the middle of another post for today, desperately trying to set aside my agitation with the guest columnist op-ed by our budget chief, Mike Del Grande, in today’s Toronto Sun. Why, oh why do I insist on thumbing through the Sun before having a hearty breakfast? Get your tasks for the day done before sitting down with that paper because you know you’re going to be driven to distraction by it. Or at least, just go to the sports section first, ease yourself into the nonsense.

Besides, David Hains over at The Clamshell already took the budget chief’s piece to task. No need for a pile on. Just close the paper up, back away slowly and get on with your day…

But here’s the thing.

What exactly is Budget Chief Del Grande trying to accomplish, mewling and moaning about agenda driven media outlets in what is the most hyper-partisan newspaper in the city, the Toronto Sun? Oh, the Toronto Star is out to get the mayor. The CBC has ‘… lost their journalistic compass.’ This he has the temerity — no, the chutzpah — to write in the pages of the Toronto Sun?!

As I tweeted earlier this morning, Google ‘Toronto Sun’ and ‘David Miller’, see what pops up. “David Miller’s magical makeover”. “David Miller’s math still vefuddling.” “David Miller’s nightmare still unfolding before our eyes.” Better still, Google ‘Toronto Sun’ and ‘David Miller’ and ‘Sue-Ann Levy’. “The latest leftover bull from David Miller”.

So the budget chief takes to the pages of the same newspaper that hounded, derided, mocked the previous mayor, even going as far as running a cartoon that compared David Miller to Adolf Hitler (unable to find a copy of it, alas; only references to it), to decry the agenda driven motives of other media outlets? All this shows is that our budget chief is oblivious to the meaning of irony. He should’ve just stood inside a glass enclosed green house and threw rocks.

Actually, I’m wrong. What his piece in the Sun actually proves is that the budget chief is nothing but a rigid, small government ideologue whose intent all along was to cut the city down to size. “Our mayor was elected because voters perceived him as a simple guy,” the budget chief writes, “the people’s mayor, who would clean up City Hall.

But last year’s election is clearly not over for news outlets like the Star and CBC.

Apparently they cannot stand to think changes in the way City Hall operates are imminent, and they will do all they can, not to offer any alternative, but to derail them, simply for the pleasure of saying, ‘I told you so’.”

Only partially right, councillor. Mayor Ford may’ve been perceived as ‘a simply guy’ or ‘the people’s mayor, who would clean up City Hall’ but he was also elected because he said he could do all that with no service cuts, guaranteed. There were so many efficiencies to find that he could cut, trim, slash, burn and no one would notice. Easy. Toronto didn’t have a revenue problem. It had a spending problem. Remember when the mayor said that back on the campaign trail, councillor?

It’s not that the election isn’t over, Mr. Budget Chief. It’s that the mayor hasn’t lived up to his election promises. There was no talk from candidate Ford, out on the hustings, of any “tough medicine budget”. If there had been, do you think Rob Ford would now be mayor of this city? Or you’d be its budget chief?

Don’t think of it as an ‘anti-Mayor Ford agenda’, Councillor Del Grande. Think of it as ‘the chicks coming home to roost for another mendacious politician agenda’. That’s really the message you should be hearing.

— helpfully submitted by Cityslikr