The main drawback of Jim Watson being elected mayor of Ottawa is that we don’t have Larry O’Brien to kick around anymore. He was such an irresistible target. I don’t know if it was his colossal ego coupled with his little wee brain, or his ludicrously macho approach to life, or his absolute willingness to say whatever stupid thing he was thinking…but whatever it was, it was hugely entertaining and provided plenty of fodder for the local bloggers.
He might not be mayor anymore, but Larry O’Brien’s still blogging. I was planning to write about his recent crazy-assed blog post entitled “Time for a BIG project?”
If I’d known he was going to delete that post from his blog, I’d have made a copy to share with you, because it was almost like Larry O’Brien had become a caricature of himself.
As I remember it, he was proposing a big fat underground nuclear power super grid to be built under North America, which would solve our energy problems while fixing the economy. He implied it would be politically neutral because the right would have to swallow the trillions of dollars of debt we’d need to absorb to make this a reality, and the left would have to swallow a nuclear-powered future. (It seems to me we’d all have to swallow all of it, but maybe I’m missing something.)
He also said, in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen’s Joanne Chianello, that he would be willing to head such a project, if asked.
I’d love to know what lead to his decision to delete that blog post.
If you need another ridiculous mayor, try Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto for the last year. He is one of the reasons I moved out of the city. He is embarrassing, takes himself way too seriously, and is totally over his head with his mission to “stop the gravy train”, which got him elected in the first place. His recent scuffle with “This Hour Has 22 minutes” that prompted him to call 911, and get angry at the dispatcher because he is the “f***ing mayor of Toronto” and the police were taking too long (10 mns) to show up on his doorstep, should win him a drama queen award.
Oh yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on Ford. He’s even worse than Larry was, because he’s an idiot AND a bully.
In a perverse way, I almost miss him too. Although not so much that I want him back anyplace close where he can do damage.
Seventh Heathen recently noted that my Larry-era posts were a lot more lighthearted than anything lately, and I can see why.
The special O’Brien brand of stoopid was so much more entertaining to work with. The grandiose disconnect from reality was so colourful… and so pathologically complete…
Exactly, Coyote. And I loved the fact that he never thought he needed an editor or someone to vet his ideas before he shared them publicly. He just came right out and said that panhandlers were like pigeons and being busted made him feel like a rock star, and stuff like that. He just spewed stuff out faster than we could write about it!
Google has a cached version of the post.
Thanks dp, and also candissa, who emailed me the link. You guys are amazing!
I miss him too since he at least made my job of getting elected easier. Now if he could only be elected PM then my next job would be ready toget my next job. Did anyone know I am going to hang both Bob C, and Larry O at the end of January?