As much as anybody we here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke love reading the adolescent taunts and insults hurled by the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy at all her political foes. It is a constant marvel to us how an alleged adult can get paid by a “major” news organization to write (and think) like a 12 year-old. No offense intended to any 12 year-olds who might be reading this.

But our mirth soon turns to.. mirth.. lessness when Ms. Levy volleys her hectoring invective in our direction. No. She didn’t single us out personally. We were not savagely set upon by her trademark quotation mark attack. Not yet dismissed as little more than “Bloggers” or “Drooling Denizens of Millertown”™®© although we vow to keep trying.

Instead, those of us in attendance at Adam Giambrone’s mayoral kick-off on Monday night were lumped together and hosed down in a typical Sue-Ann Levy gland expressing spray. According to Levy, the “packed crowd” consisted of “CAW members”, “bike lane and transit fanatics”, “a handful of councilors” and “assorted freeloaders”. I guess Sue-Ann missed the bank of “journalists” that “hogged” the front of the room, so they didn’t really count as being “there”.

The “CAW members” were easy to spot, sporting the union label on shirts and jackets as they were. How they cleverly managed to hide their horns, tail and cloven hoofs is another matter entirely. I didn’t see “a handful of councilors” but did get close enough to catch a whiff of Howard Moscoe’s cologne. Who knew they still sold Hai Karate?

Only the keen, journalistic sense of someone like Sue-Ann was able to suss out the “bike lane and transit fanatics”. No one I saw wore a bike helmet or reflector vest. No pro-bike/public transit or anti-car signs were in evidence. Perhaps, she could hear the jangling of tokens in people’s pockets over the din of the “packed crowd”. The room did cheer Giambrone’s rebuff of fellow candidate Rocco Rossi’s pledge to keep bike lanes off arterial roads. Levy agrees with Rossi, therefore anyone who doesn’t is a “fanatic”.

As to the “assorted freeloaders”? Maybe someone in the crowd asked Sue-Ann for change. I don’t know. There were complimentary plates of finger foods making the rounds. So I guess those who dug in were, to Sue-Ann Levy’s quicksand way of thinking, “freeloaders”. Guilty as charged, I’m afraid as I did “freeload” a passing samosa. Nice and spicy if a little chewy.

This was clearly not Sue-Ann Levy’s crowd. Her people were outside the venue, “alleged” disgruntled residents of Giambrone’s ward 18. Chanting and waving protest signs, these were the victims of the young “Mini Miller”’s “arrogance”, “fiscal incompetence”, “social engineering” and “vindictiveness towards those who don’t see the world his way”. (Hello!! Kettle! Pot’s in the Toronto Sun being hypocritical!!)

She’s like some wind up toy that the Sun lets loose to snarl out pre-programmed sound bites. There’s no on-off button. Just a for-against one. While there’s going to be a slight variation on the theme, it looks like what we’ll be hearing from the Toronto Sun over the next eight months or so will be something like this: “Giambrone” = “Miller” = “Bad” and if you don’t agree you are a “union loving” “car hating” “bike riding” “free food eating” “island airport protesting” pooh face.

That will be the Toronto Sun and Sue-Ann Levy’s story and they’ll be sticking to it regardless of how the campaign unfolds.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr