If you like to cringe, you should watch Jimmy Kimmel's appearance, via Skype, on Rob Ford's show last night. Ford Nation is a unique phenomenon—part political campaign, part spectacle of addiction, part comedy. And so forget for a moment the pink-faced, sweat-drenched mayor of Toronto. Forget his gangster brother. Forget the show's production values, which make public access television look like a Coen brothers movie. All of that is to be expected. We have gone so far beyond mere embarrassment in Toronto that these kind of stupidities no longer even register. No, what was so cringe-inducing was watching Kimmel, who is not an idiot or an addict or a politician, playing along. His show has used Ford more than any other late night show, and has generated by far the best Ford material. But last night's encounter should be a wake-up call: It is officially time for Kimmel to stop joking about Rob Ford.

I understand why Kimmel does it, believe me. He's admitted he is "completely in love with Ford," and who isn't really? Rob Ford is unprecedented in the history of comedy. He's a walking joke, literally. When he walks, it's funny. When he runs, it's hilarious. You could never create a comic character with the levels of rich awkwardness and unforgettable timing that Rob Ford has. The man writes himself. On Ford Nation, with Kimmel, Ford turned himself into an improv skit, with Kimmel as an audience member:

Doug: Now, you know you're starting to sound like a politician when you say, "I don't know what happened that night." Kimmel: No, I'm just saying, I was so drunk I don't know what happened that night. Rob: [Laughing.] I've used that excuse one too many times myself.

For the first time, Kimmel found himself inside the joke, looking out. This is the exact position the citizens of Toronto find themselves in. And it's ugly. The biggest reason for Kimmel to quit telling Rob Ford jokes is the simplest: It's just not very funny anymore.

But as someone who lives in Toronto, I would like to implore Kimmel to stop joking about Ford for another reason: By keeping the idea of Ford as a joke alive so long, he is helping him get reelected. Why else do you think the Fords showed up on his program? Why do you think they asked him to be on their show? The man was elected as a buffoon, and he could easily be reelected as one. And so if the conversation about him remains focused on his drug abuse with no mention of his policies, then he might well win. At the moment, he has an image, as a drug abuser in private who keeps city costs down. The drug abuse has hidden the fact that he has completely failed at his appointed political task, which was to cut down the city's bureaucracy.

Policy remains in hiding, and the man is scandal-proof. It's a recipe for victory.

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To turn it all into a joke plays right into Ford's hands. If I were him, I'd smoke a big fat crack pipe the week before the election, and let them come after me. He can't win on policy. But he might just be able to win as a crack smoker. There is, in Toronto, both among immigrants and the old WASP families, a profound respect for privacy and thrift. If he sticks to those stories, and nobody figures out how to change the subject, he wins.

I know this sounds wild. I know it might even sound hysterical. How could a few jokes help the guy that much? Surely Kimmel is doing political satire here. Showing Rob Ford as the idiot and addict that he is can only help get him kicked out. But the truth is that Rob Ford is utterly flummoxing. The standard playbooks of politics do not apply to him. Kimmel has to stop joking about him, or at least has to stop joking with him. Otherwise we might well have him for another four years. And that's too long a joke even for Jimmy Kimmel to run with.

Stephen Marche Stephen Marche is a novelist who writes a monthly column for Esquire magazine about culture.

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