Goddammit. Just . . . Goddammit. Does anyone else remember the days when Rob Ford was just the dopey buffoon who read while driving? And to think, now the world believes that he allegedly smoked crack. That escalated quickly.
As one of the blogs that broke the story, Gawker is currently crowdsourcing funds on Indiegogo to buy the publishing rights to the alleged video, which are reportedly going for $200,000. Yes, for the price of a house, Gawker can post a video that allegedly shows our mayor smoking crack. Fantastic.
This is a fluid situation. The people who have this video have been straight with Gawker so far, and honored every commitment they have made. We have every expectation that they will live up to their end of the bargain and, if enough money is raised, hand over the video. But buying videos of prominent political figures smoking crack inherently involves a bit of unavoidable dodginess. In the even that, for some reason, the deal goes south and we raise the money but don’t get the video, Gawker pledges to donate 100% of the proceeds to a Canadian non-profit institution that helps people suffering from drug addiction and its various consequences. We’ll figure out what that is later if it comes to it.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I’m by no means Rob Ford’s biggest fan, but please, oh for the love of the invisible bearded giant that lives in the sky, please don’t let this be true. It would be great if Toronto didn’t become the city whose mayor got caught smoking crack. And $200,000 going to charity would be a lot better than it going to some random dude who may or may not have said video. Please please please please pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let this just be a fake.
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