By now many of you have probably heard of the rather incredible story of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, having a relaxed and rather intimate conversation — and even allegedly appearing to be smoking crack cocaine — with a couple of drug dealers. In the cell phone video, the mayor is heard to make crude homophobic remarks about the young leader of one of the country’s major political parties and disparaging comments about the ethnicities of the high school kids in the football team he coaches.

Who is this guy? Is he really doing what people are saying he did? Even in the weird world of bourgeois politics in this neoliberal era, isn’t this sort of thing, well . . . different?