Wesley Pruden

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

The Obama years stumble to a cheesy climax

Everyone only thought the interregnum between presidents was "the natural transition," an orderly march to the beat of neither knives, nor guns or even stones. It's the way Americans have conducted themselves since George Washington turned the house key over to John Adams.

January 2, 2017

John Kerry’s practiced betrayal of friends

John Kerry doesn't come late to the betrayal of friends. He has had considerable practice.

December 29, 2016

Obama harms Israel one final time

Barack Obama couldn't pass up his last opportunity to put a knife in the back of the Israelis, whom he has demonstrated for years in word and deed that he doesn't like very much. He doesn't like Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, at all.

December 26, 2016

The amazing grace of Christmas morn

The malls and the Main Streets will fall silent. The ringing cash registers and the happy cries of children are but ghostly echoes across the silent cities. But the Christ child born in a manger 2,000 years ago lives, liberating the hearts of sinners and transforming the lives of the wicked.

December 22, 2016

Putting Campaign ‘16 to bed at last

Well, now what? Sorehead losers, who have thrived in such graceless abundance since Nov. 8, had been telling anyone who would listen, for more than a year, that Donald Trump could never, ever be elected president of the United States.

December 19, 2016

The Democratic hangover is on the way

Like it or not, The Democrats will have to come off their crying jag after the inauguration. Some of them will need safe spaces for a little while longer, with calming videos of puppies and kittens. But some senior members of the party understand that soon even Democrats still deep in an endless drunk will have to sober up to deal with cold and unforgiving reality.

December 15, 2016

Free and fair election seen as faulty by the left

The world has turned itself upside down. Only yesterday the liberals and the left (the "progressives," as they want to be called) regarded the CIA as the locus of evil, the gang that couldn't shoot straight, forever poisoning gentle minds with a diet of conspiracy and tall tale.

December 12, 2016

Donald Trump a fresh wind blowing through D.C.

They said it couldn't be done, and even if it could, Donald Trump wouldn't be the man to do it. But a fresh wind from somewhere is blowing through the jungle where the timid, the fearful and the politically correct cower in the shade of the no-no tree.

December 8, 2016

Populism gathers steam

The populist saber continues to cut the elites down to size. The elites, who think they know it all and are uniquely qualified to tell everyone else how to live, took another pasting Sunday in the Italian elections. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi felt so humiliated by voter rejection of his proposals for constitutional reform that he quit on the spot.

December 5, 2016

Democrats and their denial and grief

Life is not fair to losers, or the critics of Donald Trump, and the way he won the presidency. He just won't stand still and give the rotten eggs a chance to hit their mark.

December 1, 2016

Academic freedom optional on college campuses

Academic freedom, once so popular in the faculty lounges, appears to be optional on many campuses where college presidents wilt under the first squeals of snowflakes.

November 28, 2016

The agony of watching the Trump transition

What we used to call "the press," before the newspapers aspired to be part of the professional class with its inflated titles and airs, is never happy. Nor should it be. The press is a demanding and cranky lot by definition, and now they're something called "the media." Marshall McLuhan, who invented the concept if not the word, must never be forgiven.

November 24, 2016