The mayor must resign.

Not because of the crack video, if it really was crack in the video. I don’t care if he smoked crack.

Oh, that’s not true.

Crack is a miserable drug. It does not deliver on its first delicious promise, and those who are the most vulnerable to seeking that promise again and again, even as it gets further and further away, are those who have trouble delaying gratification.

No, you cannot have a cookie now.

I want a cookie now.

There has never been a cookie the mayor did not have to have now, is my guess. He should have stuck to weed.

Here is the only true statement I recall the mayor making in the past few weeks — he said he’d never seen the video. I don’t guess he did.

Because I guess the people who took the video didn’t think it was prudent to show it to him.

In this bad municipal movie, the video is not a MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is a distraction, irrelevant to the plot; the video is the plot.

Nor is the video a Maltese Falcon. The falcon turned out to have no value. The value of the video is the worth of the mayor’s career.

Here is the lie — Ford said the video did not exist, but he told his staff where it was.

OK, try this on for size. This is me talking now: My car does not exist.

Psst: my car is in the driveway.

What the hell?

The mayor’s chief of staff, Mark Towhey, the one who was fired? He is an honourable man. I’m betting he will not sue for wrongful dismissal.

I bet he could.

The mayor’s communications people, George Christopoulos and Isaac Ransom, the ones who quit their jobs? They are honourable men, and there is not enough severance pay in all of the city’s coffers to reward them for their courage.

Messrs. Johnston and Nejatian? They get the T-shirts.

I do this with distaste, but here I will quote Rob: I wish them the best in their future endeavours.

The fact that they all have remained silent — publicly, at least — is a sign that they wish to have future endeavours.

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After all, nobody wants a chief of staff who tells tales out of school, even if the tales are true; just as nobody wants communications people who are willing to support a lie.

Mr. Towhey, put this on your resume: I was fired by Rob Ford. It is your badge of courage.

The others may put this on their resumes, or their t-shirts: I quit because of Ford.

The trouble now?

The story has become our Watergate — it is not about what was done; it is about who knew what, and when; it is about the coverup.

Some people think we haven’t given Rob a fair chance; some people wouldn’t know a fair chance if it slapped them in the face.

Let me close with a bit of perspective: There is no video — not even a rumour of a video — showing any of the following people, glassy-eyed and waving a low flame under a glass pipe:

Allan Lamport; Leslie Saunders; Donald Somerville; Philip Givens; William Dennison; David Crombie; Fred Beavis; John Sewell; Art Eggleton; June Rowlands; Barbara Hall; Mel Lastman; David Miller.

For their sakes and for ours, Rob Ford must resign. Let him take his odious brother with him.

Anything else?

Anything else?

Anything else?