Missouri says sorry over Obama rodeo clown

This was one stunt that really backfired. The president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association has resigned. A clown has apologised, and faces a lifetime ban by the State Fair Commission.

Missouri officials say that in future, any rodeo cowboys or clowns can only take part if they successfully undergo “sensitivity training”. To conservatives, it is further proof of “political insanity”.

The backlash follows an incident at the fair on Saturday, when a clown emerged in front of the crowd with a broom shoved up his backside, sporting an Obama mask. A voiceover declared: “Hey, I know I’m a clown. He’s just running around acting like one. Doesn’t know he is one.”

A bull was let loose to charge, as the crowd joined in with chants of “He’s going to getcha, getcha, getcha”, and “Yahoo! We’re gonna smoke Obama”.

Outrage over stunt

The man behind the clown, identified as one Tuffy Gessling, has issued an apology on a local digital radio station, insisting he had never tried to dishonour or disrespect anyone, but was just trying to make people laugh.

The White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it had not been one of Missouri’s “finer moments”, and many spectators compared it to a Ku Klux Klan rally. Two local Democrat leaders called for an inquiry into “whether taxpayer funding is appropriate for an event that allows such racist actions to occur”.

But supporters of the clown have rallied round. A Facebook page backing Gessling quickly attacted tens of thousands of “likes”, while the outspoken Texas Republican congressman Steve Stockman invited him to perform in his district.

Gag with Obama mask has been done by rodeos for years to likes of Clinton, Bush Sr. Only now liberals are more thin-skinned and totalitarian

— Rep. Steve Stockman (@SteveWorks4You) August 15, 2013

Stockman derided the NAACP for calling for a federal investigation into the incident, and dismissed the growing criticism: “They want to crush dissent by isolating and polarising anyone who questions Obama, even if it’s a rodeo clown with a harmless gag.”

The Washington Post spoke to one farmer who was in the overwhelmingly white crowd, 65-year-old Virgil Henke, who claimed it was nothing to do with the colour of Obama’s skin – but went on to somewhat confuse his own message.

“I don’t care whether it’s a black man in office, but we have to have a true-blooded American”, he told the Post. “I think he is Muslim and trying to destroy the country.”

Conspiracy theorists

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, conspiracy theorists continue to allege that President Obama is not an American. Earlier this month, a group of protesters waved signs outside an event in Florida where the president and first lady were giving a speech, delcaring “Kenyan go home” and “Obama lies”.

Protesters at an Obama event in Phoenix, Arizona, chanted “bye by black sheep” outside. The Arizona Republic reported a number of racial slurs shouted by those in the crowd.

House majority leader Harry Reid said last week that he hoped the Obama critics were basing their attacks “on substance and not the fact that he’s African American”, comments which Republicans immediately denounced as “playing to the lowest common denominator”.

Michelle Obama, however, is clearly still optimistic about the state of race relations in America. She told Parade magazine that her husband’s presidency “changes the bar for all our children”.

Two weeks before the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream speech, Ms Obama said there was a reason to be hopeful about all the sacrifices that had been made.

But even in this tolerant, largely post-racial America, it seems that reminders of that age old, ugly divide are never far from the surface. Hope, yes, but mixed with a healthy dose of caution.

Felicity Spector writes about US affairs for Channel 4 News