Some Perspective On The Rodeo Clown

After being banned from the Missouri State Fair for life for being a rodeo clown with a President Obama mask, Tuffy Gessling is speaking out.

On Monday Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted a story that provides some background on the incident. Tuffy Gessling has been dressing up as sitting presidents as part of his clown act since the days of Ronald Reagan. This is the first time it has been a problem.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

…Gessling figures that people have lost their ability to laugh, at themselves and their favored institutions, and a large amount of their perspective, too…Well … at least during Democratic administrations, anyway.  The hysteria over a silly rodeo skit boggles the mind, and it’s not benign, either.  Despite the fact that presidential face masks have a long history in the US for satire and entertainment, and perhaps especially so during the administration of Obama’s predecessor, this new-found abhorrence of offending the dignity of a sitting President does not bode well for political speech of any kind in the future.  Will wearing a presidential mask for satirical purposes during a possible Hillary Clinton administration be automatically assumed to be an act of unconscionable sexism, too, rather than just humor or criticism?

The lesson here is this: Toughen up, buttercups. And I’m not talking about Tuffy Gessling, either.

The history involved in the clown with a presidential mask incident makes me wonder what has happened to our sense of humor. This act has been perfectly acceptable for more than forty years. Why was the clown banned for doing something that he had been doing since the days of Ronald Reagan? There truly is a double standard here. There are much more important things to worry about in this world than a clown with a President Obama mask.

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