Toronto Mayor Rob Ford makes wild allegation against Toronto Star reporter

Much has already been made about the contents of a recently-broadcast collegial interview between Conrad Black and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, from new claims of a vast police conspiracy against the mayor to the latest assertion that Ford's closet is finally bare, that there is nothing left to learn about his troubled past.

Yes, the VisionTV exclusive was billed as the latest peek behind Ford's curtain and delivered merely another secure pulpit from which Ford was invited to spin and obfuscate his history of illegal drug use, the concerning details of a police investigation and his relationship with the media.

The most concerning moment of the interview came when Black all but begged Ford to start picking on individual journalists. What were the most offensive abrasions perpetrated against you, he asked.

Ford took that chance to smear a respected member of the city hall press gallery. Because he’s the mayor of Canada’s largest city and it’s totally acceptable for him to make defamatory allegations he knows to be false.

[ Related: Rob Ford attacks police in chummy Conrad Black interview ]

“I guess the worst one was Daniel Dale in my back yard taking pictures," Ford said. "I have little kids.” The comment proceeded. But the allegations made therein don’t deserve to be repeated.

Ford was referring to an incident last year in which Dale, a Toronto Star reporter, visited a plot of public land Ford was trying to buy. It was a legitimate new story. It was unusual that a sitting mayor would try to purchase a plot of public land and to write the story. His attempt to buy the land was later rejected and ruled offside.

While Dale was visiting the plot of land, Ford got wind of his presence near the home and rushed out to confront him. In Ford's own words, Dale was lucky he was not assaulted.

Dale denies being anywhere near Ford’s fence or property and a police investigation ruled similarly. And no pictures were recovered from Dale's cellphone.

The facts don’t matter, however, because Ford accomplished his goal. He smeared a perceived enemy.

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Toronto Star managing editor Michael Cooke responded to the offside allegations made by Ford with this statement:

Here are a few other, less defamatory comments, made by Ford during the interview:

On drinking and drugs: “Have I made mistakes, you are absolutely right. It is humiliating and embarrassing when you make mistakes.”

On city hall spending: “If the guard is not there, then the inmates take over. I hate to use that analogy, but that is what happens.”

On limiting the mayor’s powers: “I think it is completely illegal. It is like the prime minister not being able to choose his cabinet.”

On Toronto's homeless: “I help out the homeless. I won’t give them money, because you don’t know what they’ll spend it on. But I’ll go buy them a meal. I’ll buy them whatever they will need.”

On the police investigation: “If I have done something illegal, I have told the police to arrest me… I support our front line offers 100 per cent. The chief I have an issue with. I would like to know how much he spent surveilling me. I definitely think this is political. I think they used (Alexander) Lisi as a prop to get to me.”

On media coverage: “It is ripping our family apart. When you have an eight- and six-year-old wanting to go to school at eight in the morning, crying and looking out of the window at a horde of media. They don’t know. They are little kids.… They think I am going to get hurt. They think their father is going to get killed.”

On future scandals: “There’s nothing else. Maybe I didn’t do my homework in Grade 3.”