Everyone must have heard about the clown controversy by now. Briefly, a rodeo clown at the Missouri State Fair appeared in an Obama mask and acted in a manner that suggested less than total respect for the president. Apparently, the presidential mask skit has been used for decades by rodeo clowns.
Judging by the response, neither the president nor his army of enforcers were amused by the act. The clown was given virtually the full Zimmerman treatment and banned for life by the state body that puts on the fair and sensitivity training was ordered for all involved. So far, Paula Deen has not be implicated, nor has Oprah weighed in, but events are moving quickly so that could change.
The affair is bizarre in its utter banality and trivialness, but it is also disturbingly revealing on at least three levels.
One, it shows how incredibly thin-skinned Obama is. Obama has often been labelled as exhibiting clinical narcississism. I take such diagnoses with a grain of salt, but this incident is troubling. Is Obama really so threatened by the mildest forms of ridicule that he directs the full weight of the White House and media at a rodeo clown? Apologists will say Obama never said anything, but that is the point. He could have defused the incident with one or two words. Tellingly, he didn't. Instead, he sent out a WH flack to murmur that it wasn't the "finest moment" for the state of Missouri, as if the state had reinstituted slavery or legalized child prostitution.
Two, it shows the blacks are so crazy and delusional that any hope of racial progress is nothing but a foolish pipedream. The president of the Missouri NAACP actually demanded a Justice Department hate crime investigation. Over a freakin' clown skit. The entire race hustling industry, which hasn't had much to do since the Zimmerman case, saw an opportunity to remind us how loathsome they are. Once again, mainstream blacks are telling us they are too immature to appreciate that not every negative, or in this case humorous, reference to Obama is evidence of virulent racism.
Three, it has shown the incredible hypocrisy of white liberals. After all, it was white politicians in Missouri who overreacted to all this. The same liberals who guffawed over Tina Fey's mocking of Sarah Palin saw this in an entirely different light. White presidents have been mocked at this same rodeo for years, decades even, with no controversy. Obama, for some reason however, is supposed to be immune to any and all criticism or ridicule.
I read a strained attempt at justifying the reaction by Kathleen Parker, the supposedly conservative columnist for the Washington Post who briefly also had a talk show on CNN with Elliot Spitzer. She likened the situation with a lone man in a black mask in an arena full of hostile whites rooting for the bull to get him as just too similar to racial lynchings to tolerate. Seriously, that is what she wrote. Apparently, lynching white presidents is acceptable. Whatever. There is an element of white liberals and republican "moderates" who will never ever find reason to criticize any black, no matter how disgusting or vile they are, unless of course the black happens to be conservative, then it is ok. No one moaned about Herman Cain being mocked after all.
Judging by the response, neither the president nor his army of enforcers were amused by the act. The clown was given virtually the full Zimmerman treatment and banned for life by the state body that puts on the fair and sensitivity training was ordered for all involved. So far, Paula Deen has not be implicated, nor has Oprah weighed in, but events are moving quickly so that could change.
The affair is bizarre in its utter banality and trivialness, but it is also disturbingly revealing on at least three levels.
One, it shows how incredibly thin-skinned Obama is. Obama has often been labelled as exhibiting clinical narcississism. I take such diagnoses with a grain of salt, but this incident is troubling. Is Obama really so threatened by the mildest forms of ridicule that he directs the full weight of the White House and media at a rodeo clown? Apologists will say Obama never said anything, but that is the point. He could have defused the incident with one or two words. Tellingly, he didn't. Instead, he sent out a WH flack to murmur that it wasn't the "finest moment" for the state of Missouri, as if the state had reinstituted slavery or legalized child prostitution.
Two, it shows the blacks are so crazy and delusional that any hope of racial progress is nothing but a foolish pipedream. The president of the Missouri NAACP actually demanded a Justice Department hate crime investigation. Over a freakin' clown skit. The entire race hustling industry, which hasn't had much to do since the Zimmerman case, saw an opportunity to remind us how loathsome they are. Once again, mainstream blacks are telling us they are too immature to appreciate that not every negative, or in this case humorous, reference to Obama is evidence of virulent racism.
Three, it has shown the incredible hypocrisy of white liberals. After all, it was white politicians in Missouri who overreacted to all this. The same liberals who guffawed over Tina Fey's mocking of Sarah Palin saw this in an entirely different light. White presidents have been mocked at this same rodeo for years, decades even, with no controversy. Obama, for some reason however, is supposed to be immune to any and all criticism or ridicule.
I read a strained attempt at justifying the reaction by Kathleen Parker, the supposedly conservative columnist for the Washington Post who briefly also had a talk show on CNN with Elliot Spitzer. She likened the situation with a lone man in a black mask in an arena full of hostile whites rooting for the bull to get him as just too similar to racial lynchings to tolerate. Seriously, that is what she wrote. Apparently, lynching white presidents is acceptable. Whatever. There is an element of white liberals and republican "moderates" who will never ever find reason to criticize any black, no matter how disgusting or vile they are, unless of course the black happens to be conservative, then it is ok. No one moaned about Herman Cain being mocked after all.
