Cheers to the rodeo clown in Missouri

By Sylvia Thompson

The hubbub generated by unhinged leftists, especially black unhinged leftists, over the Missouri rodeo clown's act with the Obama mask is breathtakingly idiotic. I only wish that I were able to contact that gentleman to applaud him for giving his audience something about which to cheer. From my childhood memory of circus clowns, that is what clowns do.

Nothing was more disgusting about this fiasco than the fact (if I heard correctly) that the clown was booted out of his job, and Missourians did not rise up to demand that he not be let go. This fact, coupled with the close-running second of an NAACP group demanding that the Justice Department investigate the clown's behavior as hate speech, is enough to drive a sane person over the edge.

One commentator at the Eagle Rising blog site, although chiding the clown's opposers for going overboard, still felt it necessary to describe the behavior as "stupid" and "tacky." My take is that the behavior was neither stupid nor tacky. It was either an entertainer donning a president's mask, as so many entertainers have done with other presidents, to entertain; or It was an American's way of using the tools of his trade (clown) to show his obvious disgust with what Barack Obama is doing to this country. Maybe it was a bit of both, but either way, he has every right in a free (at the moment) country to ply his trade.

How long any of us will have the right to express ourselves freely is debatable, at the rate the nation is declining. Right now, however, there is no law saying you cannot be disgusted by a person holding the office of President. As long as you do not threaten that person's physical well-being, which this man did not do.

There will be those who whine, "Respect the office." And to that, I say, "Why?" I do not respect "positions," divorced from the character of the person in the position. The "presidency" is only worth the respect owed the person in the office, in my view. That is why for the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency, I considered myself without a President; effectively without leadership, because I had zero respect for the man. Yes, the person holding the office is owed protection, compensation for his work (as is any American worker), and a reasonable amount of cooperation from the other co-equal branches of government. The emphasis, here, is on "reasonable"; the cooperation must be reciprocal. Beyond that, the office holder must earn the people's respect.

It is patently clear that Obama does not, himself, respect the office of President, and he has done nothing during his tenure to engender respect for his person from much of the American populace. That they do not respect him is understandable. Neither does the rest of the world.

This fiasco is just another instance of race mongers playing the race card and timid Americans running scared at the threat of being branded "racists." Stop running scared, and maybe, playing the race card will lose its potency. Just a suggestion to all the folks out there who are not "of color."

© Sylvia Thompson