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Rob Ford's Toronto

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I must be spending way too much time following this train wreck. My dream last night was a mashup of Rob Ford, the movie Alien and Pearson Airport!
 
Lots of good highlights from the Matt Galloway interview. All quotes paraphrased from memory.

MG: "What message does it send when you refuse to cooperate with police?"
RF: "I was the first one there at the flooding. When that young boy was shot at the Eaton Centre, who was the first one there at midnight?"

(The Eaton Centre shooting happened in the late afternoon.)

RF: "I've never missed a day of work for 14 years."

RF: "I'm never going to have a scandal.... involving me stealing a dime." (Air Canada Centre moment, and makes me hope that the rumors of abuse of power charges are true.)

RF: "I'm not a lawyer."

RF: "It's before the courts."

MG: "If you are charged, will you step aside?"
RF: "I'm not here to talk about hypotheticals." (We need a pledge from the other 4 candidates that they will step aside if criminally charged between now and Oct 27.)

RF: "I experimented with drugs. You can't tell me these other councillors haven't. I made a motion to do drug testing and they ruled it out of order."

RF: "People go to sleep easy at night knowing I'm there, watching over their tax dollars."
 
Matt Galloway did the best job so far of interviewing Robbie (who is known to police). He asked direct questions, pushed Rob into new universes of making up lies on the spot and deflection, and challenged a lot of the lies. Short of an Anthony Smith question - which would have made it "perfect" as an interview - it was a great effort. Rob arrived late, sounded rushed and out of breath, and ran out of his six talking points very early on.

After last night's Ryerson town hall, which touched on some of the criminal issues, Matt has pushed the bar way up. From now on, this is the standard for grilling Rob against which all media and other meryl candidates wiill have to aim for.

And I can't wait for Doug to start bellowing off in all directions.
 
Twitter people seem to think Galloway was "tough", but come on, if you've ever listened to Metro Morning you know he's a pretty soft spoken guy.

He did challenge Ford here and there, but I agree with Jesse Hirsh (another CBC on-air personality):

Jesse Hirsh ‏@jessehirsh 4m
Sorry @mattgallowaycbc but #RoFo won that round. At this marathon pace he'll win reelection too. Can the frame be changed in time?
Click to expand...

At first, Matt tried to interrupt him (to correct his lies) and you could hear Rob tisking, moaning, groaning and sulking like a child. Matt capitulated and said "continue" and let him continue spilling lies.

The problem is, if you lie 8 times a minute, and it takes 30 seconds to discredit each lie, you can only go after 1 or 2.

I've been a Leafs fan for 30 years, and I have that same sinking feeling about Rob Ford right now as I do about our playoff hopes. I feel it's inevitable that he'll win re-election.

Edit: The playing field is tilted. Everyone chooses to play by the rules the Fords eschew. I agree that Galloway's interview was "the best yet" but that's not saying much. The guy can keep getting away with saying whatever he wants, consequence free, and I swear to god people *lap it up*.
 
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LLtarra said:
At first, Matt tried to interrupt him (to correct his lies) and you could hear Rob tisking, moaning, groaning and sulking like a child. Matt capitulated and said "continue" and let him continue spilling lies.

The problem is, if you lie 8 times a minute, and it takes 30 seconds to discredit each lie, you can only go after 1 or 2.
Click to expand...

Fair point, but I still think Galloway did a great job (or at least much better than anyone else I've heard recently) in challenging Ford's $1billion in "savings" claim while referring to the CFO's briefing note, and in putting Ford on the spot regarding the crack use and connections with drug users. I would have liked to hear more questions about how he can claim to be promoting a safe city when he appears to spend so much of his time with drug dealers (not to mention pals with violent criminal histories). However, I do think that for Ford, every time he refuses to answer a question with "It's before the courts" or "Ask my lawyer", he undermines the claim that "I haven't been charged with anything!"
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
On the other hand, would you really want someone who commits domestic abuse and otherwise terrorize their spouse be mayor? Privacy is not a foil for behaviour as such - it would be abetting abuse.

AoD
Click to expand...

Obviously I don't condone it and I can't stand the man. But it hasn't been made "public" the way the other shit he's done has, so to me it's still a grey area.
 
LLtarra said:
Twitter people seem to think Galloway was "tough", but come on, if you've ever listened to Metro Morning you know he's a pretty soft spoken guy.

He did challenge Ford here and there, but I agree with Jesse Hirsh (another CBC on-air personality):

At first, Matt tried to interrupt him (to correct his lies) and you could hear Rob tisking, moaning, groaning and sulking like a child. Matt capitulated and said "continue" and let him continue spilling lies.

The problem is, if you lie 8 times a minute, and it takes 30 seconds to discredit each lie, you can only go after 1 or 2.
Click to expand...

I don't know what to make of Ford's amazing ability to stay on message and make up more lies. In a weird way, it's admirable. I'm not even sure he knows he's lying, seriously.

Based on the accumulated interviews we've heard, I think we have to conclude it's just harder to get to him than any of us actually imagine. One way of looking at it might be that the truth and a sense of self are so utterly foreign to him that he is almost literally incapable of getting down to that level. For a normal person it would like the subconcious, the way reality is to him, so it's a lot of layers to get through. I'm not excusing the behaviour of anyone in that first debate but it really is like he's been programmed like a doll with 6 responses. You can ask whatever questions you want, there is no 7th answer to get.

I want to hear the Galloway interview but I suspect there are only two ways to really get the truth out of him. The first is to just keep asking the same question over and over until he answers, even if it's the only question in the interview. So when Ford started talking about the flooding (which is interesting; usually he's all about his ice storm leadership!), you just cut him off, say that's not what I asked and go back to square one. And keep doing it until he answers of leaves, whichever comes first.

The second way is putting him on the stand in front of a skilled prosecutor (following a good grilling by an experienced homicide detective). I don't know that we'll ever see the former but I'm increasingly optimistic about the latter.
 
Nothing says honest mayor like a criminal lawyer--

reporterdonpeat 7:54am via Web
"Invite Dennis on the show and he'll explain the legalities of it all" Rob Ford encourages @metromorning to talk to his lawyer.
 
Oh, I almost forgot the part where he argues with Matt about statistics.

(paraphrased)
MG: "You took credit for reducing unemployment earlier. Unemployment is up, to 12% now."
RF: "No it's not."
MG: "And youth unemployment is at 24%."
RF: "That's not true."
RF: "How do you define youth anyway? Is it 14 year olds looking for part time jobs?"
RF: "I coached football for 23 years, and I tell you, 90% of those kids had part time jobs. I was at Ryerson yesterday and 90% of those kids had part time jobs. There's no way 1 in 4 of them..."
RF: "It's just made up."
 
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LLtarra said:
Twitter people seem to think Galloway was "tough", but come on, if you've ever listened to Metro Morning you know he's a pretty soft spoken guy.

He did challenge Ford here and there, but I agree with Jesse Hirsh (another CBC on-air personality):



At first, Matt tried to interrupt him (to correct his lies) and you could hear Rob tisking, moaning, groaning and sulking like a child. Matt capitulated and said "continue" and let him continue spilling lies.

The problem is, if you lie 8 times a minute, and it takes 30 seconds to discredit each lie, you can only go after 1 or 2.

I've been a Leafs fan for 30 years, and I have that same sinking feeling about Rob Ford right now as I do about our playoff hopes. I feel it's inevitable that he'll win re-election.

Edit: The playing field is tilted. Everyone chooses to play by the rules the Fords eschew. I agree that Galloway's interview was "the best yet" but that's not saying much. The guy can keep getting away with saying whatever he wants, consequence free, and I swear to god people *lap it up*.
Click to expand...

I think if people are looking for a knock out punch, they're not going to get it. Rob is excellent at arguing and he's heard most of these questions before. People can laugh or groan when he says things like "I'm not perfect" of "I'm not a lawyer", but it serves the purpose of pushing the conversation forward. Even when faced with hard facts like the 23% youth unemployment rate, he just shrugs it off. I was originally hoping that Galloway was going to ask him how he intended to pay for his three subway lines, but now I realize that he would have just shrugged that off as well ("I paid for the scarborough subway, I'll pay for the other subways too - I have a proven track record").

Anyway, the point is that Rob can tisk and moan like a spoiled brat when people ask him hard questions. Some people will - as you say - lap it up. But in the long run, 2/3 of the city will not lap it up. Ford has never gotten more than 1/3 voter intention. And the last time a mayor won an election with only 1/3 was Nathan Phillips in the 1950s. The numbers don't look good for Ford - they never have.

Edit: I'll add that there was a poll that came out a while ago that asked Torontonians if they believed Rob Ford's $1 billion claim. IIRC, about 60% said they did not believe it. So Rob can continue to make the claim, but I think the public is generally suspicious of anything that Ford says.
 
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This would be a great poll to administer. Do you have more money in your pocket now than you did 4 years ago.
My answer is no. What about you?
It's a simple message, and the answer plays against Ford's 'saving money campaign'.

Norm Wilner ‏@wilnervision 33m
Asked to inspire us in 30 seconds, Ford answers with a question: "Do you have more money in your pocket than you did four years ago?"

Edward Keenan ‏@thekeenanwire 24m
No. Anything else? RT “@wilnervision: Ford answers with a question: "Do you have more money in your pocket than you did four years ago?"”
 
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