TORONTO

The thing with playing “got you” is that it can come around to get you.

If there are two guys who should understand that it would be Mayor Rob Ford and Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti who, as it turns out, like being on the ‘got you’ side better.

For politicians, though, opportunity is sometimes too hard to resist.

A picture of a city worker appearing to be snoozing at his desk proved to be that for the mayor and councillor.

It was a perfect, defenceless, political scapegoat.

“There are cases all over the city where staff people feel they can just sleep on the job,” Mammoliti told the Toronto Sun’s Don “Pistol” Peat.

Ford already has the pink slips out.

“I cannot tolerate this,” Ford said, adding it’s an “embarrassment and a black eye on our city.”

Whoa.

Easy now, Rob. You sure you want to go there?

This is one of those glass houses moments.

It’s far less egregious than the misconduct accusations opponents have lobbed towards Ford and Mammoliti and many others in the past.

They got to keep their jobs.

It’s an interesting lack of leniency and understanding coming from two guys who in the past have certainly talked their way out of being caught in alleged pictures in alleged comprising positions and received several second chances.

One famous one seemed to catch Mammolilti and two other councillors exiting the House of Lancaster in 2009 which was explained as a “facilities tour” and lunch paid for by the councillors themselves.

Alibi accepted.

And where do you start with Ford on film — from allegedly using a cellphone while driving use to hanging out with guys in “the ‘hood” to the infamous alleged crack video.

“Ridiculous?” as Ford says it to be.

Of course. There’s no definitive evidence and benefits of the doubt are offered.

Both Ford and Mammoliti, who both survived allegations of campaign fundraising infractions and a lot of other things, have been given their fair share of mulligans.

So why is the book being thrown at the sleepy guy?

Did nobody learn the lesson form poor TTC change collector George Robitaille?

He was photographed asleep in a booth in early 2010 and was laughed at by the city until it was later revealed that he was sick. Before the year was out he had died.

“I don’t want to hear these excuses,” Ford said of the apparently snoozing worker at the Carmine Stefano Community Centre in Etobicoke.

Really? No proof or explanation? No compassion? No one is allowed to have a bad day? No second chances?

Do you want us to apply that same standard to you, Mr. Mayor?

In the future, or perhaps retroactively to hockey-game-gate, Garrison Ball-gate, Ass-gate, TTC bus-gate, robo-gate?

And Mammoliti of all people, who has been off sick with serious issues the past few months and just back on the scene, should know better than to throw stones that could so easily be thrown back.

Look, I get it. Ford and Mammoliti are trying to make a point and there may even be a point to make.

But if this is the standard we have for taking down people paid by the public, what can be used to “get” one person has got to be good enough to “get” the next.

When a warning is all that is necessary, “getting” this employee is not only cheap but hypocritical coming from two guys who don’t like it when people try to get them.