May Day: The trial(s) of Mayor Larry

As a city pauses to either smell the scent of spring, or (depending on your kink) possibly the mayor, His Nibs will step down (temporarily, he truly believes...) at midnight tonight to deal with that pesky criminal matter pending before the courts. And I just wanna say that it is so unfortunate that others - you uninformed critics and naysayers! - cannot see him in the same optimistic light that he does. Because despite the repeated intrusion of actual, you know, reality, time after time he somehow manages to keep right on believin' in the essential rightness, goodness and smartness of Mayor Larry, to a point that some may call ummm, delusional. In this spirit, it seems like a good moment to pause and recall some of our favourite Larryisms:

• "Zero means Zero!" - Campaign promise to cut city taxes. And, umm, how did that go? Now an eponymous blog pointing out Our Beloved Leader's piddling, minor, utterly forgivable oopsies...
• " "I fell asleep on my boat in July drinking a beer and when I woke up I was the mayor of Ottawa." - That's okay, fella. At least a third of Ottawa voters seem to have been blacked out that entire time, too...
• "Quite frankly I believe with every fibre of my being that I'm innocent." - Right, gotcha. See intro, above... And after consulting (barely) overnight with an unspecified focus group whose opinions seemed to fly in the face of popular majority opinion, he said "overwhelming support" led him to cling to the job instead of bowing out after being charged...
• "I feel like a rock star!" - To media at Ontario Provincial Police HQ, where he was formally charged and printed, in:re that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...
• There is, naturally, no fifth quote...
• "No comment..." - The Mayor's hired spokes-thingy, after three companies that had been signed to build a light rail system slapped the city with $277 million worth of lawsuits. His Nibs had previously persuaded council that it could tear up the contract without major consequences...
• "Certainly I'd vote for myself..." - Larry announcing his intention to continue screwing up royally ummm, run for mayor again, in 2010 municipal elections. Maybe he went back to the same focus group he used to decide to stay in office, after he was charged in that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...?

Y'know, looking back over these quotes, I'm beginning to see that Hizzoner is in way over his custom-buffed head. Alone they might mean nothing, but there's obviously a pattern of half-recognized denial. Together, they form a highly public cry for help. Mayday, indeed...