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Wesley Pruden

Wesley Pruden

wpruden@washingtontimes.com

Wesley Pruden would have wanted to spend his final hours at his keyboard, deftly deflating the pompous, entitled and arrogant of the political establishment, and he came awfully close. The venerable Washington Times editor, columnist and journalism institution was found dead July 17, 2019, at his home, after putting in a full day at the newsroom on New York Avenue in Northeast D.C., where he had worked since 1982, four months after the newspaper's founding. He was 83.
His remarkable career began 67 years ago as a teenage copy boy in Arkansas, making him among the few old-school newsmen whose sharp political acumen, elegant writing style, and keen sense of the absurd allowed him to remain as relevant in the digital age as he was in the days when the rumpled shirts of reporters were splattered with ink.
To read his obituary, please CLICK HERE

Articles by Wesley Pruden

John Kelly. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

John Kelly is a grown-up in command at White House

It's early yet, and first impressions are sometimes misleading. But not often. John Kelly looks like the best appointment President Trump has made since he named Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

July 31, 2017
Protesters listen to speakers at a demonstration against a proposed ban of transgendered people in the military in the Castro District, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, in San Francisco. Demonstrators flocked to a plaza named for San Francisco gay-rights icon Harvey Milk to protest President Donald Trumps abrupt ban on transgender troops in the military. (AP Photo/Olga R. Rodriguez)

Donald Trump transgender ban will benefit military

The Army and the other military services can do a lot of things, and never flinch when the nation calls. Now, Donald Trump to the contrary notwithstanding, the services have been "tasked" to make women and transgendered people feel better about their place in society. Isn't that what an army's for?

July 27, 2017
Jason Greenblatt. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Muslim terrorists foiled at West Bank

It's time to beat up on the Jews again, particularly the Jews in Israel and the West Bank. Once more they're not standing still enough to enable the Palestinians to maim and kill.

July 24, 2017
Harry S Truman. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Donald Trump gets armchair diagnoses of narcissism

Pity the poor presidents. It's not enough for presidents to deal with enemies foreign and domestic, conduct warfare with Congress and dispense lollipops. Sometimes they have to deal with "help" from sons, daughters, brothers, in-laws and other hangers-on to the bully furniture at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

July 17, 2017
President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron shake hands at the conclusion of a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Thursday, July 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A big Bastille Day for America

The Donald finally caught a break in Paris, basking in rare Franco-American bonhomie as he joined the new president of France on Bastille Day, this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American arrival on the battlefields of World War I.

July 13, 2017

Democrats continue to beat a dead horse

We're finally getting somewhere. Dead horses are useless to most folks, but Democrats, rendering plants and certain newspapers are determined to follow the stink.

July 10, 2017
Benjamin Franklin (Associated Press) **FILE**

Fourth of July speech Obama never made

Barack Obama, regarded by the alt-left as the alt-president, was back home in Indonesia for the Fourth of July holiday, and there's clearly something in the water in the Islamic world. Whatever it is, it brings out the missionary in the man that most of us regard as merely a former president.

July 3, 2017
Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow      Associated Press photo

Media bias may be immune to libel laws

The so-called Sullivan rule, which largely freed the media from pursuit by libel lawyers, is the gold standard in American newsrooms. Gold doesn't collect tarnish. Nevertheless, thoughtful publishers, editors and libel lawyers warn that when anything goes and irresponsibility is regarded as a virtue, the media will eventually see its checks returned marked "insufficient funds." It takes a clever man or institution to overdraw an unlimited checking account.

June 29, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Democrats’ message isn’t working for anyone

Some discerning Democrats are at last telling the party chiefs that the party has no message to take to the hustings next year. That may be a misreading of the stars, Nancy Pelosi's horoscope and Chuck Schumer's tea leaves.

June 26, 2017
George McGovern. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Democratic Party no longer has a home

That's the dilemma of the Democrats, forlorn, despondent and walking in circles like the goose hit on the head with a long-handled wooden spoon. They're asking questions for which there are no happy answers in the wake of their fourth straight loss in a round of special elections.

June 22, 2017
Alan Deshowitz. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Special prosecutors follow their own rules

Fair is fair, but special prosecutors work to their own fairness code, that it's important to be fairer to some than to others. Sometimes you don't have to be fair at all.

June 19, 2017
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III was named as special counsel to oversee the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. (AP file) ** FILE **

Robert Mueller has Donald Trump in his sights

Every lawyer has a bit of the ambulance-chaser lurking deep in his heart, and dreams of one day landing a permanent client. Even a lawyer as distinguished, as ethical, as high-minded, as above all reproach and as disdainful of personal glory and profit as a special prosecutor.

June 15, 2017
Julius Caesar

Donald Trump assassination fantasy is dangerous

The liberals and the left have been flirting with the fantasy of an assassination of Donald Trump since the early hours of last Nov. 9. If all the rants and diatribes, which make up the conversation where snowflakes, "intellectuals" and the morally elite gather to chat and chew, can't accomplish the elimination of the president by peaceable means, then why not by "any means necessary?"

June 12, 2017
Former FBI Director James Comey speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. Associated Press photo

James Comey had a tough day on Capitol Hill

One day of huffing, another day of puffing, and we're just about where we were. Half of us want Donald Trump's presidency to succeed, whether we like everything about the Donald or not, and the other half regards him as the anti-Christ.

June 8, 2017
Bill Cosby. (Associated Press)

Press hunt for Donald Trump may never end

If Robert Mueller concludes, after a $100 million investigation into whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election, that there was no "there" there, then what?

June 5, 2017
President Donald Trump arrives in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, June 1, 2017, to speak about the US role in the Paris climate change accord. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

America first policy kept by Donald Trump

Uncle Sugar doesn't live here any more, and he didn't leave a forwarding address. This is the message, spoken loud and clear by Donald Trump Thursday in the White House Rose Garden, and it's just now getting through to the easy riders out there.

June 1, 2017
France's President Emmanuel Macron. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

G-7 summit shows Emmanuel Macron is loved by the press

With not much going on at the G-7 summit, and everyone waiting for Donald Trump to say whether he would abandon one of his most fervent campaign promises, social media could turn its attention to the trifling, the piddling and the picayune. People magazine might not have been there, but Bloomberg News got the skinny:

May 29, 2017
Former US President Barack Obama is awarded the German Media Prize 2016 in Baden-Baden, Germany, Thursday, May 25, 2017.(AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Obama attempts government in exile

The government in exile -- the real one, according to the media -- has had a busy week at home and abroad. "President Obama" has given up leading from behind and presumes now to lead from overseas. His secretary of state has a new mission, as missionary to the safe places where snowflakes fall.

May 25, 2017