In the world of politics, it’s impossible to ever live down an embarrassing physical mishap. From Bob Dole falling off a stage to George H.W. Bush vomiting on the Japanese prime minister, such moments become iconic reminders of our leaders’ fallibility. So when Turkmenistan’s president, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, fell off a horse at a recent race that he was participating in for some reason, he was understandably a little apprehensive about how his people would react to news of the incident. Luckily for Berdymukhamedov, he has a stranglehold on the nation’s media outlets, none of which ever mentioned his fall. Berdymukhamedov even went through the extra effort of having the police check “the computers, tablets, mobile phones and cameras of departing passengers at Ashgabat’s airport,” the AP reports.
Unfortunately, a video eventually leaked anyway. The Turkmenistani version of Jay Leno is going to absolutely destroy Berdymukhamedov someone else on his show tonight because he doesn’t want to be tortured.
