Once again, lying to the news media is frequently worse than simply coming clean with the truth.

Or as we call it, falling on your sword.

In May, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford adamantly denied that he used crack cocaine (video below). He used a variety of legal weasel words (see Bill Clinton’s famous meaning of “is”), but Ford made it abundantly clear that he didn’t use cocaine and any video showing it was wrong.

He lambasted the Toronto Star for doing the story. Note: Newspapers see blood when you call them liars.

Fast forward to yesterday and the Mayor (who reminds one of Chris Farley in his final days) finally came clean that he had smoked crack cocaine (video below). He actually seemed to think that his explanation of how he likely did it when he was drunk would help his case. It didn’t.

Playing the “I’m not perfect” card was also too little, too late.

In May, the Mayor should have followed Pat O’Brien’s sound advice: ADMIT, APOLOGIZE…ADVANCE. When the news media has a video of you smoking crack cocaine don’t even try to deny it. There is no way out.

Instead he let the issue drag on for months. By the time his apology came it was too late—and not very well done.

Doing it in the midst of a gaggle of reporters yelling questions was disjointed and just plain awful. This is a classic example of how NOT to handle a crisis.