Posted on 05/24/2007 1:13:05 PM PDT by SmithL
NASHVILLE -- Embattled state Sen. Ophelia Ford said today that she plans to remain in office at least through her first term that ends in 2010. She also flatly denied any suggestion that she has a drug or alcohol problem, as her brother County Commissioner Joe Ford implied Wednesday.
"Ms. Ophelia Ford is going to be here and there is nothing you can say or do to take me away. I don't care what the media says," Ford said in an interview in her Nashville office. "I will be here in the Senate and I will be here until my four years is up. I've got a long time to decide" about whether to run for re-election in 2010, she said.
She said a Nashville hotel employee was "absolutely wrong" when he told ambulance dispatchers last week, after she fell from a stool in a concierge lounge, that she was "very intoxicated." "I had not been drinking. I do take medication. They were absolutely wrong and it was misinterpreted." She said that her symptoms might have caused hotels workers to think otherwise.
Ford, 56, blamed her frequent absences from legislative sessions this year on the "chronic anemia" that she says doctors diagnosed last summer during a two-week hospital stay. She's had three blood transfusions since then, she told The Commercial Appeal and The Associated Press.
She said that she was exhausted last summer, following a special election campaign in late 2005 and a subsequent five-month fight to keep her Senate seat that included a federal court fight with Senate Republicans who tried to oust her. She was admitted to hospital, tests were run and -- after falling in the hospital -- she said doctors finally diagnosed her with anemia.
"I was a little anemic when I had my daughter. She's 34 now. It just came down on me with the courts, suing the Senate. It just came down on me."
Ford said she's not aware of the precise kind of anemia she has. She said she would not permit her physicians to speak with reporters about her condition.
She was visibly upset with her brother Joe Ford's calls for her to enter "rehab" and said that despite his repeated public discussions about her in the media, he has not returned her calls nor has he called her. "I've been calling this guy for weeks. " She did say she spoke with Joe Ford's wife this week and that her brother Edmund Ford and his wife have both called her this week.
"I don't know where Joe came up with that. He's a recovering alcoholic and drug addict for 15 years," she declared.
"My family don't take care of me. I take care of myself."
She's a Memphis Ford, it's her birthright.
Denial of a problem is one of the characteristics of a substance abuser.
Says a lot about the intelligence level of her constituents. Don’t know much about Memphis so I don’t know much more than that.
On a personal note, she is absolutely hideous.
“Look, it’s this button right here on the tricorder!”
A Nashville cab driver has accused state Sen. Ophelia Ford of tearing off his shirt button during a drunken altercation in his taxi — the latest in a string of bizarre incidents involving the Memphis Democrat that have led some to publicly question her health and sobriety.
Ford, 56, declined a request Thursday by The Tennessean to discuss the incident but told The Associated Press that she was not drunk and would not have grabbed the driver intentionally.
“If I did, it was to hold on,” Ford said. “I’m not strong enough to do that,” referring to being weak from a chronic illness.
The driver, Habib Hashi, told police he picked up Ford and an unidentified woman from the Wildhorse Saloon in downtown Nashville on Tuesday.
Ford, Hashi said, was intoxicated and brought out to the cab under a blanket to keep the public from seeing her.
“She said ‘Take me to my (expletive) hotel, (expletive),’” Hashi said, during an interview Thursday. “She kept saying, ‘I will fire a lot of people tomorrow.’ I didn’t know who she was talking about.”
During the ride, Hashi said, Ford grabbed the collar of his shirt from behind and pulled it back, tearing a button off.
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