"...And don't call my room again!"
State Senator Ophelia Ford, who replaced her criminal brother John Ford in the Tennessee Senate under rather suspect circumstances to begin with, was taken to the hospital yesterday after collapsing at Nashville's Sheraton Hotel.This would normally be mere unfortunate news and hardly worth posting here were it not for Miss Ophelia's bizarre off-topic rant in a Senate hearing yesterday. According to several anonymous sources, it has been reported to The World that Miss Ophelia had to be removed from the room by several legislators and her tirade apparently continued when she was escorted out of the room. One source told me that her angry, booming voice could still be heard long after she was led away.
Considering the nature of the situation here, we do have to ask ourselves a number of questions: Is Senator Ford suffering from an undisclosed illness that might cause episodes like this? Is this illness the reason that she has been absent from the Senate for much of the legislative session, thus being unable to effectively serve her constituents? As a person with a disability, I can certainly understand how people can get the sorely mistaken idea that any kind of disability or illness can keep you from doing your job when nothing could be further from the truth. People making those kinds of assumptions have, in fact, cost me employment in the past. However, if there is one thing I have learned it is that I have to be honest about my limitations, too-I must admit when my disability may keep me from functioning effectively in certain capacities. This maxim is especially true for anyone in public life.
Apparently, Ophela Ford is quite uncomfortable with confronting her problems as they may relate to her constituents. When a Commercial Appeal reporter called her room to ask about her going to the hospital:
Reached at the Sheraton Wednesday night by a reporter for the newspaper, Ford angrily denied going to the hospital.
"No," she said, "and don't call my room again."
Labels: Tennessee politics
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 7:49 AM
3 Comments:
Probably the most charitable take I have read on her condition so far -- and it comes from the opposition.
Auto;
Like many here in East Tennessee, I don't trust any of the Fords worth a flying flip-but if Ophelia Ford really is suffering from some kind of treatable mental illness and she can't do her job because she can't get the proper help-I don't wish that on anyone, whether on my own side or in the Party Opposite. A mental illness is also a kind of disability, just as a physical disability is, and I have lived with one of those my whole life.
I have to believe that she is a more intelligent and "with it" individual than what we saw at that hearing a couple of days ago, or what we've been able to deduce by her absence from the Senate in recent weeks. If this continues and she refuses to confront the issue (i.e. face reality), thenher fitness to sit in the Senate can and should be brought into question.
I think she needs to give it up and go home until she can get her crap under control. This woman sick or not needs major help!
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