Editorialists are shocked – shocked! – that a speech by the publisher of the Sacramento Bee was heckled. This prompted one letter writer to ask whether these comments would have appeared if David Horowitz had been similarly howled off.

Silly fellow. To leftists, conservatives should have no rights. Controversial comments by David Horowitz? “Hate speech,” therefore not constitutionally protected (“no free speech for fascists”). Subpoenas to The American Spectator for minutes of editorial meetings? What they were doing was “not journalism,” therefore not constitutionally protected. Which illustrates an unattractive feature of leftists: their “defining away” of viewpoints with which they disagree with a view to suppressing them.