The Lives of Politicians: Nicolas Sarkozy, Bev Oda, and Mayor Rob Ford.
You thought Obama had a tough life after using Jay-Z’s trademark gesture of brushing dirt off his shoulder and risking a copyright law suit, or Romney was in deep water after references to Hitler doing “one thing right”? No, Canadian politicians are worse off. Much, much worse.
Take Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. He has been ambushed on his own front lawn by aliens. It’s a good thing he called 911 and was rescued from what turned out not to be aliens after all, but the comedian Mary Walsh dressed up as Princess Warrior.
Next, he was accosted by a streetcar driver, who may have been naturally crabby or was one of those commies the mayor described as “two steps left of Stalin” (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/24/mayor-ford-calls-council-foes-two-steps-left-of-stalin). Now it seems that Rob Ford is under attack from Higgs Boson, which keeps attaching mass to him. As every physicist understands, that leads to weight – over 300 pounds in Ford’s case. This in turn causes emotional problems, such as loss of self-respect, so that the Mayor now refers to himself as Rob-Fucking-Ford (http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/ford-focus/2011/10/27/rob-fucking-ford-berates-911-dispatchers/.
On the federal level, Bev Oda has similar problems. All she wanted was to be allowed to smoke and drink a glass of orange juice. That’s why she switched from a standard to a deluxe hotel when she attended a meeting in London. We know that smoking is expensive ($ 665/night, to be exact) and that quality orange juice cannot be had under $ 16, so why the vicious public reaction that ultimately drove her out of office? She will have to live on a miserly pension for the rest of her life now, just enough to buy 43,841 glasses of juice, according to CTF National Research Director Derek Fildebrandt’s helpful calculation.
Bev Oda’s mistake was to look for the good life in London instead of staying close to home in Ottawa, where excesses are too numerous to warrant attention. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy knew that when he chose to hole up at the Desmarais cottage on Echo Lake after a little scandal back home. It seems he accepted cash from L’Oreal owner Liliane Bettencourt, although I personally don’t see wrinkle-faced Sarkozy as a posterboy for L'Oreal products. In any case, he was safe from pesky journalists in Canada. No one took notice when he arrived by helicopter because, according to locals, that’s the usual mode of transportation. Boats, you understand, are used only by white trash.
With all this going on, no wonder Prime Minister Harper feels compelled to shuffle his cabinet, although in these dangerous times, he has to choose his words very, very carefully.”To be honest,” he said (it’s always good to throw in a bit of honesty when you talk to pesky journalists),”I thought about doing that, but some time ago I made a decision that I probably wouldn’t do it...I think what I’m more likely to do is [to shuffle cabinet] probably in mid-term” (Globe & Mail, July 6). If you ask me, he didn’t use nearly enough “probablys” and “maybes”. Those pesky journalists are going to nail him to the cross for that.
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