WITH SO MANY items from which to choose, it was inspiring to see the great Rob Ford, Canada’s bestest mayor ever, taking the courageous and principled course by candidly admitting guilt in what is doubtless his most outrageous crime. On his radio program this weekend Rob Ford admitted that he drank a touch too much on St Patrick’s Day (something looked upon with horror and disgust in this city and elsewhere) and that he’ll try to slow it down a bit, that is if he plans afterward to leave his basement. No promises, people, because who on earth can promise not to get hammered and make a public ass of oneself. Be realistic. Even the best mayor Toronto has ever had (Rob Ford, obviously) can’t promise you unicorns and sunshine and your own private Idaho.

He can however say that he is a changed man, and that’s good enough for Ford Nation, who have never questioned a syllable that has passed through his lips. It’s time to forget the all that and move along, people. Innuendo and elite liberal media smears and other made up stuff by the hating haters, conceived in Makebelieveland to ruin the taxpayer-loving and taxpayer-serving Rob Ford, are now in the past. What was I talking about? I don’t remember: it must have been the great, humble Rob Ford, who was re-born amidst rainbows and roses and sincerity this weekend; and having been re-born, he has heroically challenged the Toronto council to resign if they don’t accept his re-bornness on his terms. He has also told the police to arrest him if they have anything to arrest him for, na-nananana. So to all of you elitist Ford haters, I say: what more profound and fixed gesture of humble and selfless servitude than this, that Rob Ford is willing — even demands! — that everyone else in government resign if necessary to underscore how much he’s changed and how much he cares, and has always cared, about Toronto.

Let us not forget that Rob Ford was democratically elected by the people of Toronto to do a job. And a job he has done. He answers phones during the time he has designated as answering phone time, and he goes to people’s doors and he helps them when they open their doors, again in the hour he has himself designated helping people at their door time. And of course there is Rescuing At-Risk Football Player Time and Where the Spirit Moves Me Time, and other heroic Mayoral innovations known only to Ford’s personal assistant, or select Toronto detectives.

In today’s Toronto, as a result, there are less gravy trains wasting taxpayer dollars, and the proof is that the mayor says so. Rob Ford is honest as the day is long. When the Toronto Star was making up stories about a “crack video,” Rob Ford told us without a word of a lie that he can’t comment on a video that doesn’t exist. When the Toronto Chief of Police said there was a video resembling that described in the media, Rob Ford told us without a word of a lie that you can smoke darn near anything in a glass pipe. And it’s true. Pretty much every politician goes home at the end of the day and puts something in a crack pipe, and if you follow these other politicians with police surveillance equipment you know that. It’s only because police have been following the great Rob Ford that we are unfairly focusing on his enjoyment of Borkum Riff/Mentholatum/helium/tobacco/whatever. But crack? Hahaha! Good try, liberals.

This weekend was a good opportunity for many of us in Ford Nation to observe that Mayor Rob Ford is a little bit of Winston Churchill mixed with a little bit of Abraham Lincoln. Churchill, in the sense that he’s Toronto’s greatest mayor ever; Lincoln in the sense that he’s heroic like Churchill. He has saved Toronto billions of dollars that wouldn’t have been saved if someone else were mayor right now. He tells it like it is. When he tells it differently, the next day, it’s like that too. He assured Ford Nation that all the stories about him were made up, and so they were. And he said he’s sorry and embarrassed for the made up stuff the made up stories said he did (but we know he didn’t!), and I believe it. He really is sorry for the mistakes that were made up about him making, so lay off already. It’s time to move forward, forward being a place where we change the topic to the crimes of Justin Trudeau and Dalton McGuinty, and where Rob Ford is the best mayor ever and we love him because he’s an ordinary person like us, whether he’s using funny funny language against people at a sporting event or peeing on a tree in a McDonald’s parking lot after drinking a bottle of vodka – and really, what ordinary person hasn’t done that? He’s a fun, normal, not elite, up-beat person. With Rob Ford, the bottle is always half full, until it’s empty.

There is a lesson in the events of this past weekend. When times get tough and there is no other open course of transit, have the deep humility to admit to others that you are a human being and not a futuristic supersonic omniscient bio-robot with the infinite capacity to render impeccable superhuman calculations. This will check the unrealistic expectations of your critics, who hold you to superrobot ethical standards. Admit that mistakes were made and affirm that changes were implemented. Proceed to Go and collect $200. Your detractors will try to slow you down with nonsense about ethics and conflicts of interest and honesty, but these are just fancy elitist ways to get more bicycle lanes and push other politically correct agendas. We in Ford Nation are much too informed and sophisticated to be fooled by such chicanery. We know the kind of mayor we want, and he’s just like us. Now that we’ve got him, we’re not going to let go without a fight.