Ron Ford. The Saga Continues.

Toronto, this is your mayor.

THIS is your mayor on crack.

It was another bad week for hissonor. As if a video of him smoking crack wasn’t bad enough, this week came revelations of excessive drinking on the job, cavorting with prostitutes, smoking pot in his office, and driving while intoxicated. When confronted with an accusation by a former female employee that he had asked her to perform oral sex on him, the mayor let fly a string of obscenities which roughly translated amounted to a declaration that he was getting plenty of oral sex at home as a happily married man. It has become clear that Ron Ford is breaking new ground in the field of high profile public breakdowns.

The problem for the good people of Toronto is that the government of that great city has no remedy for someone like Mr. Ford. Because they lack anything approximating our impeachment clause, the city government is powerless to remove him from office unless he is convicted of a crime. So, this week they began stripping him of his powers piecemeal. Ford is vowing not only to stay in office, but declared his intention to run for reelection in 2014, championing himself as the “people’s mayor.”

Back in 1998 during the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinski debacle, the President’s defenders constantly repeated the mantra that what someone does in their “private life” doesn’t have anything to do with their job. Those attacking Clinton for his dalliance with an intern were just a bunch of judgmental prudes who needed to get over their 1950’s morality. Fifteen years later, Ron Ford is seeing Clinton’s intern, and raising him a prostitute, a fifth of Canadian Mist, and two crack pipes. I guess it’s safe to say that 1950’s morality is officially dead and buried.

On a related note, a Canadian television station, the Sun News Network has announced plans to give Mayor Ford and his brother Doug a new television show called Ford Nation. My prediction is that it will get monster ratings. Must see TV.