That was how Mayor Ford in Toronto answered as to why he hadn’t admitted to smoking crack before, that no one had asked the right question.
While the whole situation was a bit sad to see someone having this many troubles in his private life, that response is a classic response that really needs to be used more by those of us who may have misled someone (rivalling, “… I did not have sex with that woman …” for an interesting response which you could argue wasn’t a lie), or as we have learned the true definition of Chutzpah!
Anyone with teenage children know this kind of answer, but let’s see where else we could use this kind of answer in a financial situation:
- You ask your friend to pay for your lunch at a restaurant and a few days later when they ask you to pay them back, you point out that you asked them to pay for lunch, not for a loan to pay for your lunch and if they look perplexed the answer, “I wasn’t lying. You didn’t ask the correct questions” works very nicely.
- Blackberry investors find out that the company in fact is not going to sell itself, it is going to stick it out (and try to recover by firing their CEO) and the stock price drops by 20% before trading, I guess the answer the Blackberry board could answer to the investors is, “We weren’t lying. You didn’t ask the correct questions”?
- I suppose if you were a victim of a Ponzi scheme of some kind, the “Investment Guru” that rant the scheme when the victims asked why did you steal all our money, the answer, “I wasn’t lying. You didn’t ask the correct questions”, could be used as well.
I think truly Mr. Ford should be nominated for the 2013 Super Colossal Chutzpah of the Year Award.
What is chutzpah? The best explanation I can find is from Leo Rosten (author of the Joys of Yiddish ), who stated:
“…that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”
Leo Rosten — The Joys of Yiddish
Ford, what an idiot. Back away from the pipe, politics and everything in between for a few years.
I almost feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know any better.
Mark