Go, Royson, Go!

Toronto Star columnist Royson James got a public dressing-down from the mayor for his brilliant column on Friday. The mayor's letter was published on Saturday. James responds, with more restraint than I'd have expected:

[. . .] Mayor David Miller inserted his hectoring presence into the debate — and before you know it, a rhetorical hanging became a "public lynching," the memory of his "Uncle Jim" is exhumed and he has concluded that the very foundation of democracy is being threatened by one columnist raging against city hall spending.

As they say in basketball, no harm no foul. At issue is not whether Toronto councillors deserve to be hanged (I'm against capital punishment, banned in Canada), subjected to public flogging (opposed wherever it's practised), or run out of office (we've just elected them, they're in until 2010). At issue is how do we register our disgust — sorry, our displeasure — at their fiscal indiscretions.

A number of readers have emailed concern about the mayor's "over the top" rhetoric. Some, mine. Others fear I'll be beaten (metaphorically?) into submission, afraid to utter a single contrarian view in future. My bosses, far from moving to censure me, are more concerned that I might be "chilled" into overlooking wasteful habits as council embarks on this crucial 2008 budget cycle.

No worries. Let's just use the mayor's letter to the editor Saturday as the template for all further analysis and critique of city hall. Surely, an ink-stained wretch is allowed to borrow the mayor's own carefully crafted words.

A cursory glance at the mayor's letter, dripping with bile and bluster, reveals no cause for concern that one's criticism must now be facile, gracious or temperate. The mayor provides a list of choice adjectives and phrases that might now be at a columnist's disposal.

Appropriating the title of ombudsman, editor and publisher — in addition to chief magistrate and monarch — in an attempt to control all propaganda, er, communications in Hogtown, the official list of approved words and phrases include: "Beneath contempt," "Shows absolutely no respect for democracy," "stoop so low," "outrageous thoughts," "beyond belief," "hateful ruminations," "absolutely offensive," "loathsome advocacy."

The win goes to James, by knockout, in the second round.