Although most of us would disagree, there are some who would argue that Linda Chavez, Linda Bowles, Mona Charen, and Ann Coulter are dour conservatives.

Although most of us would disagree, there are some who would argue that Linda Chavez, Linda Bowles, Mona Charen, and Ann Coulter are dour conservatives.

Without good humor, an opinionated man is a bore at best and a boor at worst. But an opinionated woman without humor is as disappointing as a woman without class. Among the prolific and dour women conservatives are Linda Chavez, Linda Bowles, Mona Charen, and Ann Coulter.

Linda Chavez is a prolific columnist and book author. Having won the Republican nomination in 1986 for a Maryland seat in the United States Senate, Ms. Chavez is especially qualified to share her policy opinions. But adjectives and hyperbole compromise what would be serious, intellectual advocacy. Writing March 5, 2003, she noted that Democrats court “Hollywood peacenik money.” Evidently, old and silly adjectives are still the most reliable. As for those who would question coalition policy in the Iraq incursion, Ms. Chavez argues in the same essay that “second-guessing the incumbent’s foreign and defense policy as a means to win the [Democratic presidential] nomination is bad for the country.” Democrats who question the Iraq war are guilty, she writes, of “undermining U. S. foreign policy.” Richard Nixon could not have said it better. Sometimes, dated adjectives work best for Ms. Chavez, as when she discussed the “quisling French” in her essay dated February 19, 2003. Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian collaborator with the Nazis 60 years ago. Linda Chavez does not clarify if French opposition to the coalition invasion is high treason or French self-interest.

In defense of Ms. Chavez, not even her florid adjectives distract her from a willingness to be fair. On December 12, 2002, she wrote that Senator Trent Lott should step down from Senate leadership following his flippant endorsement of segregation at Strom Thurmond’s famous birthday party. And writing March 13, 2003, she castigated the Democrats in the House of Representatives for not rallying to denounce Representative Jim Moran of Virginia who blamed the Iraq incursion on U. S. Jewish influence.

Linda Bowles writes a syndicated, conservative column from California. Adjectives move Ms. Bowles. On January 29, 2003, she relied upon spurious survey results to argue that Ivy League colleges pump students full of “a first-class indoctrination into radical left-wing ideology from which they may never recover.” A poll of Ivy League, humanities professors convinced her that left-of-center academics were feeding “repackaged and poisonous, anti-American messages to our young sons and daughters.” Her essay referred to a Luntz Research Companies’ poll of Ivy League professors whose personal politics appeared to be left of similar polling data from mainstream Americans. The raw data confirmed that the vast majority of 151 responding teachers were card-carrying Democrats at best and radical leftists at worst. But she either did not know or withheld from her readers the dubious aspects of the Luntz poll.

Unfortunately, neither Luntz Research nor its client, the conservative Center for the Study of Popular Culture, revealed whether a total of 151 faculty were polled, or whether only 151 faculty members returned the survey questionnaires. This statistical nondisclosure may account for the poll’s admitted error margin of eight percent. Likewise, no faculty from the sciences were questioned.

Ms. Bowles’ column of January 15, 2002, testified that, “For more than 40 years, the heathen left have successfully executed a systematic, step by step dismantlement of a structure of morals and values.” Attributing her snarling adjectives to the left-curled mouths of unnamed Democrats, Ms. Bowles also accuses Democrats of treating all things Christian “like an unhealthy contamination.”

Mona Charen, lawyer, former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan, and columnist syndicated in more than 200 newspapers, is one of the most hyperbole-heavy, female conservative essayists. Hailing the Iraq incursion as “one of the cleanest and most humane military triumphs in the history of warfare,” in her April 22, 2003, column, Ms. Charen lumps all those disquieted by the war in the company of “those disinclined to rejoice in American success.” Those opposed to the war, “the anti-war crowd” she calls them on March 21, 2003, are suffering from “America hatred.” Her hyperbole thrives on the “we against them” argument. “The left’s default mode,” she writes on February 21, 2003, “is always to protest against us.” (Emphasis added.) At least Ms. Charen alleged in her March 4, 2003, column that she is opposed to the torture of her adversaries.

But the writings of Ivy League graduate and lawyer, Ann Coulter, suffer the most from literary acid reflux.

“[L]iberals,” Ann Coulter hissed on April 17, 2003, “support the enemy.” One week earlier, she equated liberals with “fifth columnists.” In the same April 10, 2003, essay, she slimes the First Amendment’s assurance of Freedom of Speech as “the usual traitors’ dodge.” Those who Ms. Coulter believes are left-leaning journalists are “the sedition lobby,” she wrote on April 3, 2003. To her, what some journalists mean by objectivity is really “relentlessly attacking your own country.” In her March 28, 2003, column, Ms. Coulter equated the New York Times with the Baghdad Times as her best shot for discrediting some New York Times skepticism about the Iraq incursion. “Liberals are like the [Iraqi] Republican Guard,” she argued. “They never quit.” Quoting Iraqi official Tariq Aziz who called the coalition incursion a campaign to “create something called greater Israel,” Ms. Coulter wrote that “Aziz seems to be positioning himself to run for Congress as a Democrat.” Such is Ms. Coulter’s concept of civil discourse. Perhaps, in fairness, she indeed prefers uncivil discourse.

On March 20, 2003, Ms. Coulter compared named, Democrat United States senators to Uday Hussein, the torturer, rapist, psychotic son of Saddam Hussein. “Democrats,” she sneered, “were saddened that America was about to win a war.”

“Liberals hate America,” is Ms. Coulter’s astigmatic vision of American History, noted on March 20.

On March 6, 2003, Ms. Coulter accused Democrats of “opposing all anti-terrorism initiatives.” When disregard for historical record is insufficient, Ms. Coulter is not above resorting to the most personal hooting. In the same piece, she called Democrat Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, Ohio, a “strange-looking little man.”

Has it not occurred to female conservative essayists that rabid hyperbole and incendiary adjectives taint their very unique perspective, their vital conservative scholarship, and their contribution to the republic’s intellectual debate? When advancing important arguments essential to public discourse, it is not enough for conservative, woman columnists to be bright, intelligent, tenacious, cantankerous, humorless. In their writing, a little compassion and a little fairness might assure that the history of our country will honor these cheerless voices for their intellects. Unless, of course, it is already too late.