Ideology Trumps Governing

As news broke yesterday of what amounts to a full scale war against the civil service at Toronto’s City Hall by the Ford Administration, the mayor was reported to be off in Peterborough coaching an afternoon high school football game (an exhibition high school football game no less). Which meant he’d cut out early and was absent for another half day of work. That is, if he showed up at all in the morning.

To remain a full-fledged supporter of Mayor Ford at this juncture means a combination of any or all of the three following possibilities:

1) You’re a paid political operative.

2) So steadfastly entrenched in your political opinions that nothing, no matter how egregious or outrageous, the mayor says or does will shake you from the view that he is the right man for the job. His success or failure is your success or failure. Essentially the bastard child of My Country Right or Wrong, Love It or Leave It.

3) Prone to such adherence to conspiracy theories that inevitably it will incorporate the involvement of aliens from outer space.

In this last scenario, Mayor Ford (and by extension his supporters) have been beset by bitter left wing kooks of the downtown elite kind still unwilling to accept their his victory in 2010, the Toronto Star, Kelly Grant, trough-feeding union types, fat cat bureaucrats, a mysterious cigarette smoking man, lazy, welfare teat-suckers, communist refugees from the former Eastern Bloc, David Miller acolytes and sycophants, the Liberal government at Queen’s Park, teh Gays, sidewalk hogging cyclists, George Soros, Al Gore, environmentalists and LRT lovers, ex-Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page, Newstalk 1010 (outside of the Sunday 1-3 pm slot), the Chicago media, the moms and dads of Don Bosco football players who never attend any of their games, Mary Walsh and the 22 Minutes thugs, Rick Mercer (and, very likely Sarah Polley), all orchestrated by the devious and deft hands of the putsch-seeking socialist Carroll-Perks-Vaughan triumvirate.

All out to vilify Mayor Ford and the hard working taxpayers of Ford Nation, intent only on ripping the electoral mandate to shreds.

Matt Elliott’s firm and unflagging 42%? One would hope not but I won’t hold my breath in hope. If so, so be it. This is no longer about them.

This is about the mayor’s colleagues on city council.

Robyn Doolittle’s article shows a willful disregard toward good governance on the part of the Ford Administration. Its ideological hubris seems more determined to dismantle and destroy the proper functioning of this city than it does finding efficiencies and respecting taxpayers. (Those are simply conservative code words for inflicting damage anyway.) Continued compliance with the mayor’s self-proclaimed mandate by councillors at this point is nothing short of an abdication of their responsibilities they were elected to uphold.

Standing with Mayor Ford now is standing against the city.

Going forward, that seems like an awfully ugly garment to be wearing out in public.

— advisedly submitted by Cityslikr