Conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday said that a rodeo clown was a “brave artist” after he had been criticized for turning the Missouri State Fair into a “Klan rally” by putting on a mask of President Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, fairgoers said that a rodeo clown had put on the mask and another clown “ran up and started bobbling the lips on the mask and the people went crazy.”

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Officials with the Missouri State Fair later took action to “permanently ban this rodeo clown,” and the rodeo announcer responsible for whipping up the crowd into a frenzy announced his resignation.

But Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative radio hosts claimed liberals were waging a war against free speech rights.

“It shows how afraid this administration is,” Beck said on Wednesday. “They are afraid, literally, of a rodeo clown. They can’t afford to have anybody critical of the president.”

“You know, people burn books and we had the McCarthy era where you were silenced because you were a communist,” he continued. “I got news for you, you may not see rodeo clowns as art or entertainment, but it is. This is an artist, a very brave artist, believe it or not, rodeo clowns. They could get mauled by a bull at any time.”

“Just like I don’t see the big blue paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I don’t see that as like art, a lot people do. I don’t say, ‘How dare you! Take that art out of here! That’s not art!’ No. This is art. Believe it or not.”

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Beck added: “Or you know what? If you wrote that down in a book, maybe we could burn the book.”

Watch this video from The Blaze, broadcast Aug. 15, 2013.

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(h/t: Right Wing Watch)