It's so true. Politics here is so dull compared to what you guys can pull.
One of my favorite scandals where 'shot himself in the foot' could almost be taken literally.
Returning to his mobile home in Austin, the Republican representative was struck in the left arm by three buckshot pellets from a twelve-gauge shotgun, and his car was riddled with dime-sized holes. At various times since then, Martin, 29, has said his arm was raised to protect himself, to yawn and to check the time. Wayne House, then a legislative aide to Martin, took him to a hospital. But even then, House started to wonder: Had Martin staged his own shooting?
As time passed, evidence mounted that he had. Martin, a conservative Baptist, had set his sights on a state senate seat, and the assassination try sounded suspiciously like a p.r. gambit. Before the shooting, he had composed an "emergency list" of people to contact should anything happen to him; at the top, above his family, was his public relations man. Associates also noticed tiny discrepancies every time Martin recounted the shooting.
Martin ignored a subpoena to appear before a grand jury on Aug. 11, and then hatched a more outlandish version of what had happened: a black-masked member of "the Guardian Angels of the Underworld" had carried out the ambush to prevent him from exposing the satanic cult. On Aug. 17, Martin ducked another grand jury appearance—for his own safety, he said.
A few days later Martin's cousin, Charles Goff, 29, swore to police that he not only fired the shots, but also made three threatening telephone calls to a Martin aide to bolster the satanic cult story. The next day Texas Rangers found Martin hiding in a stereo cabinet in his mother's house and arrested him on an old assault charge. Free on bail, Martin denies everything. The grand jury will hear more evidence this week. If Martin is charged, it will probably be with a misdemeanor. Two possibilities: reckless conduct and making a false statement to police.
It's an oldie, but it's hard to beat.