In me the need to talk is a primary impulse, and I can’t help saying right off what comes to my tongue.

— Miguel de Cervantes

A true story…

Which is almost always followed by something only distantly related to the truth, if at all. I know you’re not going to believe this (and you shouldn’t because it isn’t to be believed) but trust me (don’t), this is a true story (it isn’t).

Everything Councillor Doug Ford says should begin with ‘A true story…’ No, wait. ‘This is a true story, folks.’

Earlier this week with Tim Hudak at City Hall to announce the Ford’s the PC’s transit plan (essentially Metrolinx assuming control of the money making portions of the TTC and subways, subways, subways whenever), Councillor Ford complained how he was always getting stuck behind streetcars when driving into work from his Etobicoke home. On Friday, however, it seemed that the councillor suggested he travels back and forth on the streetcar-free Gardiner Expressway and would happily pay a toll to do so if the private sector built a new toll lane.

Either the councillor is making it up as he goes along, scant attention paid to what he’s said previously or as Matt Elliott suggested, we “must confront the possibility that Doug Ford just drives circuitous routes around the city every day, constantly, forever.” Is it that he doesn’t remember the words that spew from his mouth whenever he’s near a camera and microphone or does he simply hope and believe his supporters won’t remember? In the end, I’m not sure it matters. Bullshit is bullshit. It smells the same whether intentional or deliberate.

And when Councillor Ford isn’t filling the air with a litany of nose stretchers, he’s tossing out hyperbolic claims like Mardi Gras throws from the parade float. At Councillor Ana Bailão’s drunk driving press conference, Councillor Ford announced that not only had he not had a drink of alcohol for “20, 30 years” but that he was “..the only person in this whole building right now that doesn’t drink ever.” Add this to the collection of grand claims he’s piled up in the almost 2 years he’s been at City Hall.

“There’s no one that helps black youth more than Rob Ford.”

“I work harder than any mayor ever has.” (Oh wait. Sorry. That was Mayor Ford over-stating. A family trait, I guess.)

“I’ve got more libraries in my area than I have Tim Hortons.”

“We have more libraries per person than any other city in the world.”

Who does that? Who just spouts easily debunked statements as if they’re hard, cold facts? You don’t buy that? Then how about this one?

I know there’s a large degree of the salesman in Councillor Ford. I guess that was his job in the private sector at Deco Labels and Tags. And I get that we’re indoctrinated in the belief that all politicians lie.

Still.

He doesn’t even pretend to be concerned that we might be on to him. That by now, only the die hardest of Team Ford supporters believe a single word that comes out of his mouth.

He says he has 4 daughters. Has anyone actually seen them all in a room together? If so, how do we know he’s not hiding a fifth one away in the attic because having five daughters would be, I don’t know, unmanly?

But if there’s nothing you won’t say in order to prove your point or state your case, how flimsy a point is it, how worthy your case? To fudge facts and fib about such minor things just serves to undermine his arguments on the bigger issues of the day. You say that spending is out of control at City Hall and there’s still tons of gravy to be found? You can’t even come clean about the route you take home.

Cervantes’ knight-errant, Don Quixote, wandered in a fog of delusion because he believed too much in the books he read and not enough in the real world around him. He dreamed of the possibility of a more perfect world, a more just world. His was a noble lie.

Councillor Doug Ford can’t stop uttering nonsense it seems because he just likes to hear himself talk.

— truthfully submitted by Cityslikr