[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/10428876/Toronto-mayor-Rob-Ford-in-extraordinary-crack-cocaine-confession.html
Personally I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, I want to lambaste this man for being so unprofessional and exhibiting behavior so unbecoming and embarrassing of the most senior political figure in a municipality. On the other hand, I don’t really see it as a big deal if he only did it the once and it isn’t part of a bigger character deficiency that possible influences his leadership and policy decision making.
I’ll say that the most important criteria for which to judge a politician is the level of trust he has with his delegates and electorates. If people approve of the major, trust him and like him; obviously because he’s been getting results and running the city well, then everything else is a circus fueled by the political schemes of opposition.
The fact he’s now so open about his cocaine use says something about his personality. Not only is he transparent, a stand-out virtue in politics but he’s also someone people can relate to (he made a mistake, don’t we all?) and strong-willed, gauged by the fact he says he doesn’t want to resign.
And at the end of the day, isn’t it just cool? Torontonians can say their major smokes crack and is bad-ass at his job.[/quote]
Yeah but it is illegal. It’s a felony. That isn’t cool, and it isn’t ok.
Man if some guy off the street makes a mistake once like that, I don’t want to lock him up for 20 years. It was a mistake. But we’re not talking about 20 years in jail, we are talking about a political career. You cannot be a public leader and commit felonies (especially not in the open). Sorry.[/quote]
This.
No idea what drug law is like in Toronto, but assuming that crack cocaine is as highly illegal there as it is here, this fat abrasive dunce was presiding over a government apparatus that was doling out serious–and in some cases life-altering–punishments for doing thing X while he himself was doing thing X.
Same as Spitzer. Do I really care about ending luxury prostitution? No. But don’t send people to prison for something while you’re doing that very thing. That’s the kind of hypocrisy that makes me wish we still administered corporal punishments.[/quote]
A big fat old BINGO on that post