It wasn’t that long ago that former Toronto mayor, the late Rob Ford, was considered the gift that just kept on giving to news media, talk shows, and every comedian in the free world.
Ford is now officially eclipsed by Donald Trump. Trump is chicken fried, burrito burned, female fricasseed and Muslim mugged. To the blacks, Hispanics, immigrants and ladies of the land, we now add talking heads and Hollywood celebrities.
Trump is done. Last week, they all joined the anti-Trump bandwagon and said so.
We have a woman who says, “Trump was just like an octopus, it seemed like he had so many arms all over me.”
And another woman who says, “As soon as the door was closed, he grabbed me and forced his tongue down my throat.”
How disgraceful! How horrible! How, how so unpresidential! Even if it was 20 years ago. Or 10. Or 15 years.
One could say this is important only because Trump aspires to the highest office of the most powerful country in the world. So this is why these antics, real or imagined or simply people trying to sell a story to the National Inquirer, are such a big deal, they say. Once in office, it all fades away.
Ronald Regan was a movie start who became president with no real credentials. Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another star, became governor of California. Arnold had a baby with his housekeeper. Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry had a whacked out crazy relationship with his companion, Sondra Locke, for years.
And we haven’t even started on John or Robert Kennedy’s affairs.
Meanwhile, in the other corner, we have Bill Clinton, grinning like the Cheshire cat. You know, that fellow who says, “I never had sex.” Stretching the truth runs deep in the Clinton family, and never so deep as Hillary Clinton’s lies and misdirections over her e-mails, Whitewater, her dealings in government, and the Clinton Foundation. There is no end to what is wrong here.
But, does any of this matter these days? Not much. It’s all, “Let’s get that dastardly knave Donald Trump!”
And, like a hurtling stampede of lemmings, the whole American media circus erupts in a volcano, a lava storm of pompous, self righteousness.
None of this is to say that Trump didn’t bring it on himself. He has mismanaged his campaign. He has turned off supporters. He has turned against supporters. He has literally and unbelievably gone out of his way to screw up.
Maybe neither of these people can be trusted with running the United States. At least, and not really Trump, not being a career politician, has the opportunity to grow into the job. Clinton? An opportunity to follow in Obama’s disappointing footsteps? It’s all quite the farce.
In the end, what kind of shape did Rob Ford leave Toronto in after his four years in office? Four years from now, at the end of this upcoming presidential term, we are curious what shape America will be in, no matter who wins.
– Jeff Burgar