Torontoist's Christopher Bird explains perfectly why Mayor Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford belongs on Villain of the Year list for 2012, after appearing on so many such lists in years gone by:
Rob Ford is a pathetic joke of a mayor, easily the worst mayor this city has ever had. He is a coward, a liar, a bully, and frankly an entitled, spoiled brat of a politician who throws tantrums whenever he does not get his way, which is now often, thanks to his utter inability to work with people who refuse to be his supplicants. He makes it clear on a daily basis that he is not smart enough to be mayor: he does not understand the job or what it entails, let alone the nuances of politics and law that a mayor must know in order to be minimally competent. He is a national joke approaching international joke status, if he is not there already. As long as Rob Ford continues to be the worst element of Toronto municipal politics, then he deserves to be a Villain. It’s just that simple. If this means he’ll have a record-breaking streak of appearances, then that’s his problem, not ours.
If you disagree with that… well, let’s take a deep breath and see if we can get out everything Rob Ford did this year that was stupid, selfish, dishonest, or simply mean-spirited in one sentence: Rob Ford became irrelevant to the 2013 budget debate, then to the city’s transit strategy; during the transit debate Ford misrepresented expert opinions, went on the subway to whine at regular people, and played politically divisive games by trying to pit Toronto’s downtown against its suburbs; after that meeting he got Gary Webster fired (which cost the City over half a million dollars and did untold damage to staff morale); he had to be extensively pressured to attend even a PFLAG flag raising, and of course refused to participate in Pride at all; he threatened to attack a Toronto Star reporter (and then threatened a media blackout if said reporter was not removed from the City Hall beat); he repeatedly skipped out of city council meetings to go coach his football team and had his staff do so as well; his office may have improperly influenced the appointment of city officials; he repeatedly attacked the City’s ombudsman and integrity commissioner; he got special treatment from the City for his private company; he demonstrated that he didn’t know what a public/private partnership is; promised at Ford Fest that his next mayoral campaign, over two years away, had just begun; he was caught reading while driving on the Gardiner and passing open streetcar doors in his car; he explained, in the wake of gun violence, that “no one helps youth more than I do” when asked why he voted against federal anti-gang funding and community development; he was generally not around at City Hall doing his job; got sued for libel; and oh, throughout the year he acted like an ass with his brother on their radio show, which he used to slag his political opponents, violate the City’s Code of Conduct by attacking the City’s medical officer of health, and suggest that we use immigration laws to cut down on gun crime.
Also he fell down while trying to play football.
(Image: Worst mayor ever, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from 26263283@N00's photostream)
