The Missouri State Klan Rally: Send in the Clowns

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Missouri has a bit of history with clowns.  Legendary circus clown, Emmett Kelly (Senior) lived in the small community of Houston, Missouri, during his boyhood, and for two decades that town celebrated with an annual “Emmett Kelly Clown Festival” in honor its famous former resident. 

So it should not come as too much of a surprise that clowns again made news in the Show Me state this past week.  It began when a rodeo clown donned an Obama mask and walked into the rodeo arena at the Missouri State Fair.  A second clown soon joined him and began playing with the lips on the Obama mask.  But it was a third clown, the rodeo announcer and Superintendent of Schools in Boonville, Missouri, Mark Ficken, who proved to be the most disgusting of all.

Superintendent Ficken, who also happens to be the President of the Missouri Cowboy Rodeo Association, reportedly whipped the crowd into a near frenzy when he began commenting on the clown in the Obama mask.  Some of the comments publicly attributed to Superintendent Ficken include:  “Anybody like to see Obama run down by a bull?”  “We’re gonna smoke Obama, man,”  “We’re going to stomp Obama now,” and “As soon as the bull comes out, Obama, don’t you move.  He’s gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha.”

Perry Beam, a fair-goer who witnessed the incident, said that as the announcer carried on his diatribe, the crowd went “absolutely nuts.”  Mr. Beam said, “They mentioned the President’s name, I don’t know, 100 times.  It was sickening.”  He added, “It was feeling like some kind of Klan rally you’d see on TV.”

Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri, expressing her outrage at what occurred, said, “Missouri is better than this, and I expect someone to be held accountable.”

Radio clown, Rush Limbaugh, himself a Missouri native, waded into the controversy by observing that President Obama had demeaned the office of the Presidency by going on the Tonight Show the previous week, and therefore the incident at the rodeo was understandable.  Just another fluke, eh Rush?

To paraphrase Senator McCaskill, America is better than this.

If Superintendent Mark Ficken made the remarks attributed to him and if he is still employed, citizens in Boonville, Missouri, need to be finding out why.