Oh, Giorgio.

Giorgio, Giorgio, Giorgio, Giorgio.

Oh, Giorgio.

Communists? Really? Communists?? Support the Ford Administration to save the city from communism?

At first blush, one might conclude that the always colourful councillor from Ward 7 is simply fulfilling his duty to make the mayor, his brother and the other far right-wingers now ruling the roost at City Hall seem almost reasonable and of sound judgment. Almost. An unstable outlier that defines the boundaries of extreme. Here’s Giorgio. None who dare to pass that point can be taken at all seriously.

Then again, long before he became a confirmed Fordista, Councillor Mammoliti never shied away from making a spectacle of himself. Remember his run for mayor last year? A red light district on the islands? A floating casino. And before that, the bare-chested protest of nudity at Hanlan’s Point. The strip club tour. The flagpole.

Giorgio Mammoliti seems to court controversy and publicity. Covet may be the better verb to use in this case. As writer John Lorinc mused on Twitter yesterday Mammoliti “…operates in a realm that embarassment cannot touch. It’s performance art.” Style (such as it is) trumps substance (such as it ain’t).

Plenty of opinion was also offered that the Mammoliti Circus Side Show was nothing more than a distraction from the real harm being planned for this city by the Ford Administration. Councillor Mammoliti fiddles while Toronto is being burned. Look at me, ma. Top of the world! Ka-boom!!

Perhaps his Facebook page where the councillor vows to keep out any waft of communism is nothing more than theatre. He throws the bait into the water and gleefully stands back to mock the incredulous but inevitable reaction it elicits from the usual suspects. The left wing kooks. The downtown elites. The whiners. The communists.

Come on, guys. Communists? Really? Who in their rightful mind would be tossing around such dated terminology? Gimme a break. I was joking. Lighten up, would ya.

Seems possible except for the fact that Mammoliti buddied up to then councillor Rob Ford in the John Barber contretemps a few years back, calling the Globe and Mail a ‘socialist’ newspaper. The Globe and Mail socialist? Really? Anyone sporting that view seems capable of believing communists have been running City Hall for 8 years or so.

So maybe it is the ravings of someone caught in a pre-1989 time warp. He did talk about being brainwashed by leftists early on in his career on the CBC yesterday, I guess as a way of explaining his NDP and union affiliations back in the day. Sorry. Did I say a pre-1989 time warp? Let me be more specific. A 1950s time warp.

Best we just ignore it. Move on. Nothing to see hear. I’ve already screwed up by dedicating any space whatsoever to the man’s loopy opinions.

In my defense, however, let me just say this. Councillor Mammoliti may be beyond the reach of shame or embarrassment but what about those more moderate right wing and centrist members of council (yes, I am convinced they are out there) who have been lining up in support of the mayor so far? How does the headshaking, eye-rolling behaviour of Team Ford’s QB sit with them? Are they going to boast to their constituents of how they continually took their marching orders from council’s clown prince? All it took was a big thumbs down for them to vote how the mayor wanted?

Councillor Mammoliti might operate ‘in a realm embarrassment cannot touch’ but I’m not convinced a majority of other councillors are willing to risk their political futures dancing out there on the fringes with him. The left-right divisions Mammoliti seeks to exploit could well wind up as fissures in the current coalition the mayor’s cobbled together to push through his agenda. So, sing on, Giorgio, the discordant tune you perform so well.

— operatically submitted by Cityslikr