Rob Ford Crack-o-Meter: the Toronto Sun screws up and Ford’s football coach is scrutinized
Rob Ford has skated through some humiliating situations and emerged relatively unscathed. The crack-smoking scandal, though, has ratcheted the ridiculousity to new highs. Every day brings more bad news. So far, Ford has kept his cool (more or less), but we have to wonder if—or when—he’s going to crack. Here, our daily assessment of what’s going on with our infamous mayor.
• The Toronto Sun makes its own boneheaded blunder (Pressure: ↓) The Toronto Sun could’ve had the crack video weeks ago—only the paper unknowingly turned it down. A mystery tipster shopping a humiliating video of Ford called before the story broke, but didn’t say the magic word: crack. The Sun dismissed the offer as a crank call. Whoops.
• Ford’s advisor and former football coach David Price is under the microscope (↑) While Ford is refusing to speak about what he and his staff knew about the video, rumours suggest David Price, Ford’s “director of logistics” (and alleged partner in Doug Ford’s hash-dealing operation 20 years ago), asked then chief of staff Mark Towhey what he would hypothetically do if someone had told him where the video was. Towhey’s response: go to the police. Which is exactly what Towhey did, passing on the address and floor of the Rexdale apartment building where Price’s sources claimed the video was stashed, as well as suspicions that the video was linked to the murder of drug dealer Anthony Smith (shown arm-in-arm with Ford in a photo distributed by the video peddlers).
• The cellphone video seller is still MIA (↓) Although Gawker successfully crowd-sourced $200,000 to buy the crack video, editor John Cook still can’t track down the person selling it. Cook has set a one-month deadline for him or her to come forward before he donates the money to charity.
• There’s now a fake crack video (↑) A two-second clip of Ford lighting a pipe has been making the rounds on social media, causing confusion on Twitter and outrage on Reddit.
• Ford received two sad-sack birthday cakes (↑)
We’re not sure what’s more pathetic: a cake and birthday song remix asking him to resign or a sincere-but-sad cake from coworkers. On the upside, sugar replaced crack as the addictive substance du jour at city hall.
Crack Threat Level: MEDIUM
(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; meter, Scott Akermann)
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