Which of the following is not true?

a) Mayor Rob Ford is a cross-dresser.

b) Mayor Rob Ford is a convicted drunk driver.

c) Mayor Rob Ford is the biological father of Justin Bieber.

d) Mayor Rob Ford was a teenage drug dealer.

e) Mayor Rob Ford played linebacker for the Toronto Argonauts.

f) Mayor Rob Ford is a vegan.

g) Mayor Rob Ford, in the Pepsi Challenge, chose coke.

h) Mayor Rob Ford subscribes to the Toronto Star.

I’d separate truth from fiction for you, but chances are a large number of readers wouldn’t believe me anyway.

And Ford — proven fabulist — would call me a liar.

That’s his de facto posture when confronted with any item of contention that gets up his nose, you should forgive the expression.

We at the Star are all liars, to hear the mayor tell it, or his brother, or the vast constituency of Ford acolytes who wouldn’t know the truth if it ran over them with an 18-wheeler truck, even if DUI Ford was driving it.

We publish untruthyness because, as a pseudo-Pravda newspaper with a clear agenda to destroy His Honour, the Star has zero regard for either facts or the rules of libel. We just willy-nilly splash hatchet jobs about Ford across the front page because we enjoy living dangerously and have money to burn defending ourselves against defamation suits.

Oh, right. There haven’t been any libel suits filed by Ford, only a notice of libel from Ford that arrived three years ago and which he subsequently dropped.

Asked this past week if he intended to sue the Star over a story that chronicled some of the mayor’s alleged episodes of public intoxication, Ford said nah, he wouldn’t be dragged into a legal vortex that could go on swirling “for years,” because that’s just what this newspaper wants. (See money to burn, above.)

One might think, with his slam-dunk courtroom record in recent months, Ford would have confidence riding the hot streak. But no, he’s going to take the high road of lowbrow splenetic comment instead, wrapping himself in the pious cocoon of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them — which is the title of a book by Al Franken, not that there’s any evidence Ford has ever read a book. (We do know for certain that Doug Ford has never read Margaret Atwood.)

In some quarters, this nonsensical idea has taken hold that Ford is a victim of persecution by media and left-wing conspiracy, as if the documented incidents that put him, say, in the witness dock, were an invention that never had any merit. As if the 911 calls to his home never happened. As if he’d never been tossed from the Air Canada Centre for hurling verbal abuse at a couple sitting nearby during a Leaf game, an event that Ford initially denied — said he wasn’t even there that night — before conceding the confrontation had indeed occurred, which he blamed on having had too much drink. (But of course he doesn’t have a drinking problem.) As if that drunk driving conviction in Florida — a story broken by the Toronto Sun, Ford’s primary media champion, not the Star — was also imaginary and mendacious, until presented with the indisputable evidence, and then, oh yeah, I forgot about that, it slipped my mind.

Who is the Pinocchio here?

Liar liar pants on fire, Mr. Mayor.

A few weeks ago, I received a call from Doug Ford — we’ve never met — who left a message suggesting that it might be useful if we got together for a coffee. I was out of the country at the time but did return the call later, leaving a message with his assistant. Haven’t heard back. Maybe he’s had a rethink.

But if you’re reading this Doug, sure, let’s have coffee.

Even better, how about a beer, Rob?

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