Comments on: mayorlarry acquitted

By: trashee

trashee — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:43:25 +0000

If I have to hear mayorlarry say “… and the 141,000 people who voted for me” one more time, I think I’ll throw up all over my nice keyboard!
Maybe our own councillor will run against him? Peter Hume has been hot and cold, but a damn sight better than the incumbent!
I’m sure the Squid-dude will have something to say on that since he’s in our ‘hood as well…

By: XUP

XUP — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:36:25 +0000

If the voting public had a minimum of intelligence, Larry wouldn’t be mayor in the first place, nor would they keep re-electing the same tired old council just because their names look familiar when they see them on the ballot. Ergo, Jim Watson is going to have to get himself on the front page of the paper gladhanding important people like THE Ottawa hair stylist and a some other really glam people. Because as of right now, Jim Watson is a really forgettable name. People like the familiar.

By: trashee

trashee — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:44:22 +0000

Gee XUP. Give a guy credit for trying to attribute at least a minimal level of intelligence to the voting public!
But maybe I’m being too generous. He likely would get re-elected if he didn’t have a strong opponent. However, Jim Watson will swab the floor with mayorlarry’s shiny pate.
I have often said that Ottawa – as much as I love it here – is very much a small town with 800,000 people living in it. Mayorlarry is one of the boys and in small towns, minor indiscretions committed by one of the boys are quickly forgotten.

By: XUP

XUP — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:33:35 +0000

And by “most people” I don’t mean me, I mean all those people out there who vote but never read newspapers or blogs

By: XUP

XUP — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:32:29 +0000

Oh Trashee, how you underestimate the ennui of the voters. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Larry gets re-elected. Look how the media fawned all over him when he got married. I found that incredibly absurd. Front page news for days and days and days. People remember the glamour of that. Most people don’t know what the hell this whole trial was about and don’t care.

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:06:55 +0000

Clicked too early.

If the law had been in place then as it is now, he almost certainly would have been convicted.

So, is he innocent of the crimes of which he was accused against people he didn’t pay off in settlements? Absolutely.

It’s the other one for which I am not convinced of his innocence.

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:02:24 +0000

Absolutely. MJ settled and the complainant dropped the claim. There was sufficient evidence that the state legislators actually went afterward and CHANGED THE LAW to allow the state to prosecute for sex crimes even when the complainant changes their mind, if there is evidence to do so.

In effect, MJ bought his way out of that one.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:40:24 +0000

I find it interesting, Squid, that you say that he was found not-guilty because he wasn’t guilty – and yet when it comes to Michael Jackson, you maintain that he was indeed guilty and got out of it because of his money.

You can’t maintain a double standard like that.

If the courts are the judge as to a person’s innocence or guilt, then you must say also that Jackson was found innocent because he was, in fact, innocent.

By: Steven

Steven — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:20:17 +0000

Well, there are a lot of people that are “outsiders” to politics that one wouldn’t like to see at the head of it. If someone from outside elected politics can be an effectual and useful mayor then all well and good; but maybe Larry was and is an outsider because he has no talent or ability to do the job well? These last three years have been a total write-off, between Larry needing six months of on-the-job training (“What does a mayor do?” à la Sarah Palin) his dopey insistence of wearing the mayor’s ceremonial chain of office at every occasion, and of course his ethics case.

If he was anything other than an opportunist and egotist, he would step down now, realising that his time is over and that he can only be a lame duck at the detriment of the city. But of course he won’t: Look for him to crow victory with thumbs-up and whoop-up, and, of course, ride out his last year laughing.

“Not guilty” means “not proven,” not “innocent.”

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:47:59 +0000

I think it really was an attempted coup (ok, that’s overstating it, but essentially that was the idea). The purpose was to ensure that O’brien was tainted and wouldn’t be re-elected at worst, and to get him off the mayor’s chair to be replaced with someone more like them at best.

When Larry was elected, it was a slap to the same-old-same-old city council. He was an outsider – fresh from the private sector and likely with little tolerance for the decades-long, sit-on-your-arse-and-do-nothing attitude that the bulk of council has. They couldn’t have the mayor, of all people, pointing out their shortcomings and injecting new ideas that they’d now have to deal with and give reasons for rejecting.

In short, he could make them look bad. They saw an opportunity, blew something way, way out of proportion, and ran with it to get him out of there. It’s classic politics.