This photo provided by Jameson Hsieh shows a clown wearing a mask intended to look like President Obama at the Missouri State Fair. The announcer asked the crowd if anyone wanted to see “Obama run down by a bull,” according to a spectator. “So then everybody screamed. … They just went wild,” said Perry Beam, who attended the rodeo at the State Fair in Sedalia on Saturday Aug. 10, 2013. State Fair officials apologized calling the display inappropriate and disrespectful. (AP Photo/Jameson Hsieh)
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association says he didn’t know that a clown at the Missouri State Fair rodeo planned an act that critics on both sides of the political aisle have deemed disrespectful to the president.
The clown wearing a President Barack Obama mask appeared at the rodeo Saturday in Sedalia. Media reports said the announcer asked spectators if they wanted to see “Obama Run down by a bull,” and many fans responded enthusiastically.
Mark Ficken is rodeo association president and was the rodeo announcer. His attorney, Albert S. Watkins, said Monday that the clown was acting unscripted and it was the clown, wearing a microphone, who made comments riling up the crowd.
Watkins says Ficken’s only comment was to say, “Watch out for that bull Obama!”
