A rodeo clown has been banned from ever performing at the Missouri State Fair again. The clown caused a national uproar this week when he donned an Obama mask and made fun of the president.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch identified the clown under his stage name of Tuffy Gessling and reported that family members said he was just trying to be entertaining.
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“Late-night hosts, and ‘Saturday Night Live,’ bash Obama all the time — and Bill and Hillary and Bush and Reagan,” cousin Chrissy Gessling of Slater, Mo., told the Post-Dispatch. “That’s exactly what he was doing.”
Maybe so, but Gessling’s performance enraged many nationwide, both Republicans and Democrats, and the fallout is continuing.
Mark Ficken, president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, which hired the clown,
resigned after his performance as announcer, NPR said.
The Riverfront Times reported that Ficken hired an attorney because of the media attention this event caused, and that he said he only made one statement as announcer, saying, “Watch out for that bull, Obama.”
However, NPR reported that various videos put online by spectators after the rodeo show the announcer saying other things, including, “Let me tell these people about who we got helping. Obama's gonna just have to stay there. Obama, watch out for those bulls.”
Comments on a YouTube video posted of the rodeo clown’s performance were disabled. Predictably, comments sprang up everywhere else as this hot-button, trending topic pushes lots of political buttons.
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