Radio host Rush Limbaugh has likened the rhetorical ambush of Vice President-elect Mike Pence during a Broadway performance of “Hamilton” to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Pence was singled out and harangued Friday by actor Brandon Victor Dixon after the “Hamilton” cast completed its performance. Mr. Limbaugh said that Mr. Dixon’s claim that a Trump administration would not protect minorities, the planet, children, parents and inalienable rights was to be expected from a “radical leftist.”
“Democrat actors have been attacking Republican elected officials in theaters, I don’t know what, since 1865,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “The first known instance of a radical leftist Democrat actor attacking a Republican elected official was John Wilkes Booth assassinating Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, 1865. So these guys at Hamilton are following in what I’m sure they consider to be a rich tradition — but the condescension of thinking that they are telling the vice-president-elect how to do it, how to be, what to think.”
The conservative host said Mr. Pence’s handling of the political broadside was impeccable.
“He looked to his son and said, ’Son, that’s the sound of freedom,’ meaning people can say what they want and everybody else can judge whether or not it’s in good taste or what have you,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “But as I say, folks, in the end, it’s helpful that people are finally able now to see who these people have always been.”
Mr. Limbaugh also said that actors like Mr. Dixon were dangerous because they erroneously think they are experts on historical figures after memorizing lines and doing cursory research to prepare for roles.
“Leftists are dangerous,” the host said. “They’re actors and they portray roles and they learn lines, and they think they are then experts. I mean, you see it still today. The entertainment media will go out and interview some actor that’s just portrayed somebody famous, and that actor becomes an expert. … I think the left is everything you’re hearing people say. Oh, Alexander Hamilton, by the way? Get this. You know who invented the Electoral College? Alexander Hamilton. I’d forgotten to mention this. Yeah, Alexander Hamilton is the father of the Electoral College.”
Mr. Dixon told CBS’s “This Morning” that he would not apologize for his behavior, which President-elect Trump demanded via Twitter over the weekend.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Mr. Dixon said, Reuters reported Monday. “Conversation is not harassment. And I was really appreciative that Vice President-elect Pence stood there and listened to what we had to say. I know people have said that one-sided conversation or a lecture is not conversation, but it was the beginning of a conversation that we can continue to have.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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