To clarify that second link:
Maybe the only thing you have to understand about The BEAST and the people who work for it is this: We spend almost every waking minute (and countless sleeping) contemplating every form of human ugliness. We’re irredeemable cynics who like to believe we’ve mapped the entire genome of rottenness and venality. And then we encounter something like this: a sitting mayor seriously considering fixing an NHL playoff series in exchange for jobs, without so much as blinking. For all our misanthropy, we were unprepared for that.
Like Murphy, I never imagined the call would go any farther than my suggesting such a deal before [Ottowa Mayor] Chiarelli either laughed it off or chewed me out and hung up. Instead, I was faced with the stunning fact that he was actually going for it.
There's actually a thing with the Cuban talk show guys down here in Florida. They've prank-called Castro, then prank-called Hugo Chavez pretending to be Castro. Which is kind of funny.
The phone-bank scandal seems a little different from that, though -- Talking Points Memo has been following that for months, and it's more about blocking calls than actually pranking. More of a dirty trick, like letting air out of your opponents' tires or something. |
