Rob Ford and Karen Stintz argue over whether he phoned her
Just when we thought city hall couldn’t get any more childish, Rob Ford and Karen Stintz decide to stand in the same room and trade tweenage insults through the press. The background: this week, Ford publicly scorned the TTC’s recent $50-million, sole-sourced contract for the newsstands, bakeries and cafés in the subway system; Stintz says she twice tried to call the mayor to discuss the deal, but never heard back. Yesterday, when Stintz found out the mayor was holding an impromptu press conference, she hustled to Ford’s office to observe. After a Ford staffer asked why she crashed the scrum, she replied, in pitch-perfect passive aggression, “I just want to hear what the mayor has to say. I don’t hear from him directly.” For his part, Ford vowed he left a message for Stintz as soon as he heard about the deal and offered to show reporters his cellphone history, triumphantly declaring, “cellphones don’t lie.” Maybe they don’t, but it seems like at least one of these politicians is fibbing. [Globe and Mail]
(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; Karen Stintz, Mike Beltzner)
Gee, I wonder which one I would believe? The one who’s never seen a number that he doesn’t overstate, understate or completely fabricate? Or the one who is doing her job? So much for the millionaire mayor’s boastful record of returning millions of phone calls a week. Obviously, he was too busy with things more important than running the city to be bothered to track her down. It was a lot more convenient to use his radio show as a launching pad to attack her (without even having the good sense to have her on as a guest).
He was probably out coaching his football team, or driving while reading some “important” paper, and forgot to call her.
I would tend believe Stintz over Ford as well. She’s gone to some lengths –
not as much as Giambroni – to make the system better, and Ford has done
everything he can, to destroy transit in this city.
Cell phones don’t lie, but one of these two has a history of being found to lie.