Rob Ford really can't take a joke

Like M. Spector, I also applaud the return of Roscoe to babble. First of all, I wouldn't quote the First Baron of Lytton for usage tips on a progressive board if I were you. Have you read the poor (i.e. rich) fellow? Second, can you see a difference between my not-particularly-witty usage of "great unwashed" and Woolfman's? Third, why are you quoting a post made over a year ago in an effort to play gotcha with the draconian prohbitions oppressing babblers within an inch of their lives? Finally, don't you know that double standards are babble moderators' bread and butter?

janfromthebruce wrote:

The cartoon sure is not flattering of Rob Ford.

 

Well spotted. Any depictions, including actual photos of Mr. Ford, which do not portray him as a bronzed Adonis, are oppressive.

The way Rob Ford allegedly treated the 911 operators who took his two calls is no joke:

Quote:

Toronto’s 911 dispatchers are accusing the city’s mayor, Rob Ford, of calling them "bitches" and hurling a string of profanity at them during an emergency call early Monday.

Ford called for police assistance when Mary Walsh, part of the CBC-TV comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, ambushed him in his driveway dressed as the character Marg Delahunty, with cameras rolling.

In the video of the encounter, Ford seems at first to be playing along, but becomes increasingly agitated, asking, “Can I go to my car please?”

Ford eventually walked back inside his home and called 911 — not once, but twice.

Several police sources tell CBC News that Ford asked for police assistance but became agitated as he waited, and called back to ask when officers would arrive.

Sources say Ford turned on the dispatcher, yelling: “You … bitches! Don’t you f--king know? I’m Rob f--king Ford, the mayor of this city!”

Recordings of the call have spread like wildfire throughout the police service — even though officially Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash tells CBC News they can't discuss a private call to the 911 service.

Dispatchers sent a crew on high priority, arriving at his Etobicoke home 10 minutes after the call.

Quote:

Sources say Ford turned on the dispatcher, yelling: "You ... bitches! Don't you f--king know? I'm Rob f--king Ford, the mayor of this city!"

[Robot Voice]

Thank you for your call.

Your call is important to us.

Due to city cutbacks there is no operator to take your call right now, but if you please hold the line someone will be with you as soon as possible.

You are the .... 6th .... caller in queue.

In order to serve you best, please listen to the following options:

Press 1 if you're being murdered

Press 2 if you're being robbed

Press 3 if you're on fire

Press 4 if Marg Delahunty is harassing you

Please continue to hold.

[/Robot Voice]

 

In my experience, the type of elderly white people who put Mr. Ford into office dont really approve of the use of language like "F'n B's."

Directed at a member of the police service, even less so.

 

I think its recall time, folks.

Anyone know the procedure for impeaching/ recalling/ removing the mayor?

is there one?

Michelle wrote:

Sources say Ford turned on the dispatcher, yelling: “You … bitches! Don’t you f--king know? I’m Rob f--king Ford, the mayor of this city!”

Recordings of the call have spread like wildfire throughout the police service — even though officially Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash tells CBC News they can't discuss a private call to the 911 service.

If this does not sink him as a politician then the people of Toronto need some sort of remedial training in civic duty.  I suspect that this will be his demise much like Sam Sullivan's release of "Citizen Sam" and the playing of the clip where he said he started his morning with a shot of whiskey and visualizing killing his opponents.  

Some things go beyond right and left politics and just offend decent people.

"Decent" people are always the populist blowhard's main target for support.  When they piss off the type of people who own homes and actually vote in civic elections people like Ford disappear. Abusing women workers providing emergency services does not play well in any group of people. Its one thing to bash the poor and marginalized it is another to abuse "real" people like 911 dispatchers.

Well we have the video evidence. He has his various stories.

Ha!

 

I'm a bit confused.  I watched the CBC report a few times online and I don't see a kid anywhere in sight.  Couldn't be Ford would lie could it? 

The kid is in the window of his house, looking out. At least that's what it looks like in the video. So yeah, once again Ford lied.

No doubt! The man is clearly a pathological liar. I think we are on the fifth revision of what happened. Surely there has to be a way to have a mayor recalled or tossed out. I mean, this is a democracy (yes I know but we can pretend) and there should be some method of getting him tossed out. He is on a vendetta now. My guess is he is going for the jugular in the next little while.

Mary Walsh says his daughter wasn't there, or at least she didn't see her outside.  And she is nowhere to be seen in the video either, and they panned the house and driveway from the sidewalk at the beginning from her first cry of "Rob Ford, it's me, Marg Delahunty!" (So much for his claim that she never identified herself.) 

Oh, and she wasn't in the window either.  That was a Hallowe'en decoration.  If you watch the video and pause it and look at it as he passes it, it's clearly not a child.  And in the interview he gave today from the football field, the story changed again and he said that his daughter was "inside the door".

Quote:

Earlier this week, Ford said he was “open to games,” but the comedy troupe “crossed the line” by ambushing him at his home, with his six-year-old daughter nearby. He said she fled back into the house crying.

Walsh told the Star the mayor’s daughter wasn’t there when she showed up in his driveway.

“There was no child at all,” she said. “I mean, was she inside his suit jacket? We never saw any children.”

Walsh said Ford seemed jovial at first: he “sort of smiled” when she first called out to him, and said he had to get to work. But when Ford got into his van and tried to close the door, it was clear he wasn’t in on the joke.

Of course, he said it was dark out when it was broad daylight, too.  I guess the deep trauma affected his memory.

Also, as for his claims that he never said what the dispatchers said he did - well, as it turns out, if Ford wants to prove it, all he has to do is ask the police to release the tape to him, and he can clear himself.

Quote:

If Rob Ford asks Toronto police for a recording of the 911 call he made Monday morning after he was ambushed at his home by This Hour Has 22 Minutes, they will release it to him.

“And he could do with it whatever he chose,” said police spokesman Mark Pugash.

The contents of that call have stirred fresh controversy for the embattled mayor following a CBC News report alleging that Ford insulted the 911 dispatcher in a profanity-laced tirade.

Ford has admitted to using the f-word in the call, but has denied insulting the female operator, calling the CBC report “absolutely false.”

The CBC is standing by their story. “There were multiple sources who gave us information about the 911 call,” said CBC News spokesman Chris Ball. “We have reconfirmed with our sources and they stand behind what they have told us.”

So, ante up, Robby-boo.  Let's hear that tape!  Let's see whether you were shrieking in terror over a close call assassination plot, or yelling in anger because the police didn't show up in thirty seconds to arrest someone who pissed you off.

A friend and I were laughing today over what he said to the dispatcher: "I'm Rob Fucking Ford!"  We joked that that's what we like to call him too.  Maybe that should be his new nickname.  Bush was "Dubya", Clinton was "Slick Willy", and Rob Ford can be "Rob Fucking Ford".

He claimed that they didn't identify themselves and yelled, "We got you!  We got you!"  When what she really said was, "Rob Ford! It's me, Marg Delahunty!"

To be fair, when people are shocked or surprised, they don't remember stuff verbatim, and he might have had no idea who Marg Delahunty was, so that probably didn't register.  But still.

I see some new buttons on the horizon.

Mayor Rob Fucking Ford. Good grief!

Wow, Toronto activists are quick on the draw.

Photo by Marc Lostracco

Sympathy for being an abusive asshole, Boom Boom? Now there's a demographic that needs to be polled more.

oh please, I can wear it with my pinko button - a Rob FF set!

 

Maysie wrote:

I see some new buttons on the horizon.

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

Boom Boom wrote:

This whole thing could backfire, though. He may win some kind of a sympathy vote.

 

just before I read his admission of swearing in the 911 call, I was thinking of this controversy:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy

 

Imagine if some clever PR consultants had manufactured the 'leak' that he swore, and then it had turned out that Ford was sweet as pie on the 911 call?

"I'm so sorry for calling... I feel a little silly... I dont know who these people are on my property... I have my daughter here... Do you have a car free in the area?"

Just a thought that when the right gives you a present, sometimes its a mousetrap.

Fortunately, anybody that slick's hightailed it from this guy's team.

There is still the possibility that the use of the 'B' word was a detail added as the story was passed from person to person and finally to the reporter. The fact that they state copies of the recording have been widely distributed makes that highly unlikely.

 

More seriously, the mayor, assuming he did use that word, thereby acting both agressively and misogynistically, has picked a hell of a hell of a venue to engage in misogyny. Most of the women I have known, if they have had the unhappy circumstance to have called 911, have most often done so as a result of someone's hatred of women.  And if they haven't, they sure as hell have a female friend, or relative, or five of them, who have had to. These dispatchers, when they're doing their harrowing job properly,  are most often the ones who wind up helping women hold it together until help arrives.

 

What a jerk.

 

 

If Blair is telling the truth, CBC news can be in some legal trouble.

Ford didn't berate Toronto 911 staff: police chief

Unionist wrote:

sanizadeh wrote:

If Blair is telling the truth,...

Good one! Love it. Haven't heard that one before!

Between him and CBC "Love the Liberal party" News, I am not sure which side is more trustable. Over the past couple of years the whole organization has practically become a branch of an almost-defunct political party.

Ouch.  I'm surprised - I would think that the CBC would have demanded from their sources that they actually hear the tapes before reporting this story, if they were being circulated internally.  If I were the CBC, I wouldn't print something like that without first hearing the evidence, even if I wasn't allowed to actually release it.  Especially if they're granting their sources anonymity in the article.

Not that I would put it past Blair to cover up for Ford (after all, he got a slight break on the police budget, so maybe he owes him one), but he has actually gone out of his way to categorically deny that Ford said what was reported.  It's hard to imagine that he would do that if it was not true - all that would have to happen is for the tape to get leaked somehow, and then Blair goes down.

Until we hear the tapes, we don't really know.  And we have no idea whether the CBC reporters actually heard the tapes themselves.  But this latest development doesn't look good for the CBC, that's for sure.  As for a libel case - well, that's an interesting idea, isn't it?  If Ford sues the CBC for libel, then he will have to release the tapes as evidence, won't he?

In any case, whether he berated the dispatchers or not, he still lied about much of the encounter the morning it happened.  And three 911 calls over Marg Delahunty and a priority response police visit still = a waste of scarce resources.  Gravy, you might say. But then, I guess for that bit of time, that was one less cop available to beat up protesters.  So there's always a silver lining.

M. Spector wrote:

Does this make Rob F***ing Ford a [b]911 Denialist[/b]?

Pfffff!

If the tapes "spread like wildfire" among the police dept, how come the F****ing tapes didn't spread to the public domain? Where are wiki effing leaks when you need them?  Where are the anonomous whistleblowers?  Surely there is some link where we can hear the real tapes and F****ing decide for ourselvves what happened with mad Rob. So lets hunt for the link.  If you have heard the tapes,  do a copy of a copy and lets hear the damn things or drop it in a reporter's mailbox.  Maybe if you have background music it would be cool. The public need to know at this stage.  Lets hear it anonomously from the family or friends of the dispatchers. 6 degrees of separation, remember?  Quit  speculating and get to the heart of this and rip it out into the open. If you are in Toronto you probably know someone who is one step removed from this mess.

Brian