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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

Charles Murray (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Donald Trump causing arguments among families

Marriages, friendships and business relationships have been thrown at risk in the boiling political culture, where emotion replaces reason and millions of Americans won't have anything to do with someone with a different political opinion.

March 9, 2017
Loretta Lynch (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Democrats try to destroy Trump presidency

Some of our grown-ups are missing, just when we need them most, and our Democratic friends need more powerful meds. The ink on the streets of Washington is knee-deep and toxic.

March 6, 2017
Benjamin Franklin

Jeff Sessions affair shows Republicans must stick together

Benjamin Franklin has been trying for years to give the Republicans needed advice from the grave, and they never listen. "We must indeed all hang together," Franklin told his fellow conspirators in Philadelphia, "or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

March 2, 2017
President Trump (Associated Press)

No hot date for the Nerd Prom

Guess who's not coming to dinner, and probably a good thing, too. Neither Donald Trump nor the not so loyal opposition can be trusted to sup together without sharp elbows, sneers and insults. Before the second bottle of wine is uncorked, the hard rolls (and most years the rolls are really hard) would be flying across the tables.

February 27, 2017
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on domestic and international human trafficking, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. With Trump are Michelle DeLaune, center, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Dina Powell, right, White House Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Donald Trump’s speech features superlatives

Donald Trump isn't the carrier of the disease that threatens the language, but he suffers with enthusiasm. His abuse of the adjective might eventually threaten his foreign policy.

February 23, 2017
Milo Yiannopoulos      Associated Press photo

Milo Yiannopoulos proves costly to CPAC

The more the culture bounds out of control, the more the wary have to take care with the company they keep. This applies to media that will print anything in pursuit of "clicks" and "hits," and to well-meaning organizations about whom they invite to tutor their true believers.

February 20, 2017
John Adams (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Donald Trump clumsiness may be his best strategy

There's a hint or two that Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, which has so savaged the chattering class, may be subsiding, if only a little. There's no cure for TDS, but the passion that drives it eventually exhausts the afflicted.

February 13, 2017
Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, in this Jan. 31, 2017, file photo. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Neil Gorsuch nomination shows roadblocks of Washington

Neil Gorsuch doesn't know much about politics and how the political class in Washington works, and that's a good thing. Politics and the law make unnatural bedfellows, and the progeny of such beds is often unnatural.

February 9, 2017
Marine Le Pen (Associated Press) ** FILE **

American example can influence the world

The voice of the chicken, like the voice of the turtle, is heard in the land and it's making a fearsome racket, on final approach to the roost. The established order has been turned upside down in a flutter of fine feathers. The unmentionables and the deplorables are suddenly at the village gates.

February 6, 2017
Rex Tillerson (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Donald Trump will be tested in weeks ahead

Donald Trump is about to get a tough test of his presidential leadership, with no true-or-false or multiple-choice questions. Every new president gets the test, usually administered by international creeps and bad guys. There's no fudging the answers. Reality is the teacher, grading on a steep curve, and presidents pass or fail. There's no soft grading.

February 2, 2017
President-elect Donald Trump, left, and his wife Melania Trump arrive to the "Make America Great Again Welcome Concert" at the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ** FILE **

A hearty last laugh for Donald Trump

Donald Trump's greatest contribution to America will be his stripping the media, particularly the overpaid and undereducated television media, of its last pretense to fairness and objectivity.

January 19, 2017
Rep. Keith Ellison (Associated Press)

Democrats wasting time hating Donald Trump

Democrats who confuse hating Donald Trump with Mom and apple pie as the all-American recipe to win elections are blowing their chances, such as they are, for the 2018 midterm elections. If you're a Democrat it's never too soon to fret and stew about the prospects.

January 16, 2017
Hillary Clinton. (Associated Press)

Vladimir Putin tried to influence election

The nation's intelligence agencies -- the CIA, the FBI, even the National Security Agency, have discovered that the Russians are doing naughty things.

January 9, 2017
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, center, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, left, listen as Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks during an Armed Forces Full Honor Farewell Review for the president, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017, at Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Terrorism made easy when nobody’s looking

President Obama is on his way out, and not a minute too soon. The legacy he obsesses over continues to expand in revealing ways. It may not be exactly what he thinks he's leaving, and it's more legacy than he wants.

January 5, 2017