Saturday's Globe and Mail featured one of the most amazing candidate appraisals you’ll ever read in Canadian politics. Well, that is as long as you have the print edition on hand. Presumably because of the outrage that has flowed due to the content of the article, Stephen Marche’s piece entitled “Rob Ford’s not popular despite being fat. He’s popular because of it” was pulled from the Globe’s website on Saturday.

The original link now carries the site’s standard page-not-found message. There’s no note to explain why it was removed, or to acknowledge the fact that it once existed.

"The piece was taken off the site either late Friday or early Saturday by senior editors," Sylvia Stead, the paper's associate editor, explained by email on Sunday night. "However we are running a number of letters to the editor complaining about the piece tomorrow and you will see the strong reaction. While we believe strongly in freedom of speech for our writers and our readers both we also felt the piece was offensive in its language. It's also not what the election should be about."

She said the paper has no plans to publish an editor's note to detail the decision. Asked if the Globe would update the article's online page to explain why it was removed, she said, "I'm not sure about updating the page. It's a good question and I will look into it first thing Monday."

(Update Oct.19: We interviewed Marche, who says the paper still hasn't told him why the piece was deleted from the website, and that he learned of the article's removal via "a triumphant piece of hate mail.” He says his column has been cancelled by the paper.)

Marche is a Toronto-based novelist, a columnist for Esquire magazine and a freelance contributor to the Globe. He began his piece — I’ve embedded it below, along with all of the online reaction of note — by noting the “mounds of fat that encircle” Ford, the frontrunner in the mayoral race. He went on about Ford’s “chunky” stature, how his “belly is invariably the first thing you notice about him” and how his “obesity” and his “angry fat” are perfect for the moment.

This is because, according to Marche, fat “is the bodily equivalent of the boarded-up factories in once-industrial powerhouses like Windsor and St. Catharines and Buffalo and Cleveland. Fat in North America is work that is not being done.”

His piece went on to discuss the body composition of politicians in the U.S. and Canada. He delved into the workforce and food. He quoted from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Marche eventually moved back to the man himself.

“Mr. Ford doesn't run from his fat or hide it — and why should he?” he wrote. “His gut embodies the parts of the city and the country hardest-hit by the changing nature of our economy and the evisceration of manual labour from our society.”

Fat is the new emaciated.

Silly critics, this was an endorsement!

Yes, about those critics. Well, for starters, the Globe’s decision to remove the article without explanation has only sparked additional outrage. Twitter was filled with weekend comment about the article and its disappearance. (See below.) Bloggers have taken umbrage over the “disgraceful column”. Ford himself emailed supporters (read his message at the bottom of this post), and called Marche’s effort “one of the most vile attacks I’ve ever seen in my ten years in politics.”

Then he spins it into a call for people to get out and vote. (Hey, he’s running for mayor, after all.)

“The election is only nine days away, and I need you, your family, friends, and colleagues all to get out to the polls and vote for the change we need and that only I can deliver,” reads the email.

As noted above, the full, offending Globe piece is embedded below. I’ve also collected the notable online reaction and provided some background on Ford, his weight and the media.