Why political scandals—at a distance—are valuable tools

I feel as though I live in the most cockamamie country on Earth right now.

I’m from Canada, where the prime minister’s chief aide recently had to resign after giving $90,000 to a senator whose travel expenses were being investigated. As if that weren’t enough, we also house Rob Ford, the most dysfunctional mayor since Marion Barry.

Ford, who is mayor of Toronto, the largest city in Canada (fourth-largest in North America) has been linked to a cocaine scandal. We still don’t know for sure whether the purportedly incriminating video actually exists, but Jon Stewart has already done six (hilarious) minutes on it.