Conservative David Horowitz recently spoke at Duke University, where he unsurprisingly had to deal with heckling and jeering from a small part of the audience:

The protesting audience members sat together in the left front rows of Page Auditorium. Some laughed and heckled at several of Horowitz’s statements throughout his 45-minute lecture.

At times, Horowitz directed comments toward them.

When Horowitz said “professors are teaching students that America is the “Great Satan,” the protesting group laughed loudly. The response prompted Horowitz to say, “We’ve got some people on mushrooms in here.”

Another time when audience members yelled out at his comments, Horowitz asked them, “didn’t your mother teach you manners?” This drew an ovation from the rest of the audience.

Obviously this kind of poor behavior is bad enough. But the scary part is, originally some sort of “student strip protest” was being organized, and it was being organized by an associate professor at the school! Check out the link above to read more details.

I think Horowitz handled things the best way possible, and I’m very happy to hear that he received applause for his “manners” comment. Of course, the rude liberal behavior Horowitz had to handle was pretty mild in comparison to what other conservative figures have had to handle. William Kristol and Ann Coulter have been the targets of pies, while Pat Buchanan was once doused with salad dressing. (Coincidentally, it’s amazing how well these conservatives generally handle themselves under these stressful circumstances.)

I’ve also done a blog post dealing with Ann Coulter, where I comment on how Coulter had to cut off a recent speech due to continuous booing and jeering.