Best Local Scandal

We all know that politicians are scoundrels at heart, and we all long to see them punished for their evil deeds, though too often we cannot quite catch them in the actual doing of said deeds. They're slippery little devils, which is how they came to be politicians in the first place. So it is all the more delicious when an especially powerful pol slips up and is justly punished. Such is the case with former Broward County commissioner Scott Cowan. Last year Cowan got busted for filching funds from his 1998 campaign. He wrote checks to fictitious people and cashed them himself, sprinkled money on his daughters, bought himself some nice furniture -- the works. Really blatant, really stupid stuff from the man once considered the king of county politics and a dealmaker extraordinaire. Cowan pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor violations of election laws last November and got a six-month jail sentence and a $6000 fine. Most delicious of all: When a judge let him out on work release, the once-mighty Cowan got a job at a pizza parlor.