Marion Barry On Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Crack Smoking Allegations

The Toronto mayor's recent crack-related troubles are leading some to draw connections with a certain D.C. politician.

Here's the Montreal Gazette:

Toronto's Rob Ford is a sensation south of the border thanks to reports of a videotape that appears to show him sucking on a crack pipe, a story with apparent parallels to the spectacular travails of Marion Barry, the crack-smoking former mayor of Washington, D.C.

The Washington City Paper's Will Sommer took these connections a step further:

I asked Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry—convicted in 1990 for misdemeanor drug possession—for his take on Ford, but the D.C. councilmember says his own videotaped crack use is too different from Ford's reported tape to compare.

"Unless he was entrapped by the government, it's not similar," Barry says. Barry declined to offer advice for Ford, saying that he's too focused on the residents of Ward 8.

Sommer then goes another step further -- how many steps are we up to now? -- giving three excellent pieces of advice for Ford, drawn from Barry's resilience in public office. Read the whole piece, including the excellent advice, here.