Skip to content
Advertisement
Author profile
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

President Barack Obama is seated in the presidential vehicle as his motorcade leaves after playing a round of golf at Farm Neck Golf Course in Oak Bluffs, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Iran ransom humiliates Obama

"We do not pay ransom. We didn't here, and we won't in the future." Barack Obama might like to have that one back this morning, to stick a pin in the moving finger that writes. But the finger done writ, and it won't come back to cancel a single line of the president's fatuous fib that the United States didn't pay $400 million to ransom four hostages taken by the president's friends in Tehran.

August 18, 2016
FBI Director James B. Comey. (Associated Press)

Life is just fairer to some than to others

Millions of Americans, mostly Democrats but a few sourball Republicans, tell pollsters and anyone who doesn't want to listen that they're preparing themselves to ignore the stink and shame of Hillary Clinton when they vote in November. They're advised here to prepare themselves for a protracted season of malaise and buyer's remorse.

August 15, 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gives a speech on the economy after touring Futuramic Tool & Engineering, in Warren, Mich., Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

When a presidential race rages out of control

It's the conceit of every generation that horses have never been faster, whisky has never been older, beautiful women have never been younger — and politics have never been rowdier. But maybe our generation has a legitimate claim.

August 11, 2016
John F. Kennedy    Associated Press photo

Hillary Clinton’s falls recall the health questions JFK tried to dodge

The health of a prospective president is one of the most important issues of any campaign, but whether to ask hard questions about a candidate is usually a matter of whose prospective president, and whose health. When the prospective president is a Democrat, the media only sends candy, flowers and best wishes.

August 8, 2016
FLE - In this Aug. 14, 1935, file photo President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security bill in Washington. Americans are getting older, but not this old: Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112. In reality, only few could possibly be alive. As of last fall, there were only 42 people known to be that old in the entire world. But Social Security does not have death records for millions of people with birth dates stretching back as far as 1869, according to a report by the agency’s inspector general. The first old-age monthly benefit check was paid in 1940, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed the Social Security Act in 1935.  (AP Photo, File)

An untold woman’s story of World War II

One morning in early 1942, with the nation suddenly at war and not doing very well at it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Sen. Kenneth D. McKellar, a crusty old senator from Tennessee, to the White House. The president explained that he had to hide a billion dollars in the budget for a super-secret defense plant.

August 4, 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives for a rally at East High School in Youngstown, Ohio, Saturday, July 30, 2016. Clinton and Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., are on a three day bus tour through the rust belt. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Hillary Clinton’s lying advantage

Wit and humor have been drained from our politics, and this year it's just as well. There's not much to laugh about. Either candidate would be something of joke enough in any other year.

August 1, 2016
Warren G. Harding (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Donald Trump, the unstoppable force of nature — maybe

The dogs bark, the flies scatter, the gasbags at the conventions send enormous clouds of toxic waste to hover over Cleveland and Philadelphia that won't dissipate until Labor Day, and the caravan moves on. Election Day approaches, and rarely have so many been so disappointed with the choice before us.

July 28, 2016
Tim Kaine (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Tim Kaine, Mike Pence are disposable vice presidents

A governor is always a good choice for a vice president. He (or she) has learned how to run an administration, how to work with a cranky legislature and understands staying close to the people who elected him. There's no Praetorian guard to keep him separated from the people.

July 25, 2016
Sheldon Adelson. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Mike Pence to the fundraising rescue

Money is not the mother's milk of politics, as the bundler's cliche goes, but homemade vanilla ice cream, rich and creamy. Donald Trump hasn't been getting any. Not much and not lately, anyway.

July 21, 2016
Bob Dole (Associated Press) ** FILE **

NeverTrump agents sore losers

Time is running out for the sore losers in Cleveland (and other places). Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, and attacks on him now, deserved or not, are attacks on the party and can only cripple the chances of taking back the White House.

July 18, 2016
Boris Johnson. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

A rousing week for the Gaffe Patrol

The Gaffe Patrol, that brave and courageous squadron of the media that sets out to seek and destroy politicians and others who inadvertently say something to offend the code of political correctness, has had a remarkably good week here in the Lower 48.

July 14, 2016
Chief Justice John Roberts. (Associated Press)

The election to terrify us all

This might be remembered as the year when they gave an election and nobody came. The millions stayed home, the champagne went uncorked, and everybody lived in semi-misery ever after.

July 11, 2016
Trey Gowdy (Associated Press) **FILE**

Hillary Clinton ‘too big to jail’

James Comey continues to supply the champagne at Hillary Clinton's headquarters, after making sure she wouldn't have to spend Election Night in a 5 by 7 jail cell. That wouldn't be big enough to accommodate her pants suits.

July 7, 2016
Theresa May. (Associated Press)

British problems often said solvable by ‘looking for the woman’

Trying to sound wise about another country's politics is usually a fool's game, and from this side of the Atlantic it looked like Boris Johnson had a lock on becoming the next prime minister in London. He was the face of the successful effort to pry Britain from the moldy clutches of Europe, and who could stop him?

July 4, 2016

Transgender soldiers part of Obama overarching policies

The Obama administration's big idea, proudly disclosed Thursday that "transgender individuals" -- not to be confused with "men" and "women" -- can now serve openly in the U.S. military services. This ends one of the last bans on service in the nation's armed forces and opens a new chapter of men at arms. HMS Pinafore goes to war.

June 30, 2016
Chicken Little

Media hysteria over Brexit

Chicken Little will have company when the sky falls on the British isles and the world ends, which the European Union, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and Barack Obama can now say with confidence will be at 2:20 in the morning next Thursday (just in time for the late final editions).

June 27, 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

The bad moon rising over Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton won't be able to say she didn't see the bad moon rising. Donald Trump gave her a blistering introduction this week to Presidential Politics 102, which differs in a remarkable way from Politics 101, which she encountered in her first attempt in 2008 and before that as the managing partner in Bubba's two campaigns.

June 23, 2016
Boris Johnson. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Britain prepares for Brexit vote

This is do-or-die week in Old Blighty. Our British cousins will decide Thursday whether to reclaim their birthright, voting to leave the European Union and the Germans, French and an assorted gang of easy riders, and reclaim their status as a world-power capable of sitting on its own bottom.

June 20, 2016
Sen. John McCain. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Republicans feeling sorry for themselves

The Republicans are trying out new branding and new colors for November. The Stupid Party has become the Pity Party. Hanging tough is too much trouble for gentlemen.

June 16, 2016
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Obama won’t let tragedy in Orlando go to waste

Tragedies are usually sad for most people. But the opportunists always take to heart the famous advice of Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and once President Obama's top aide: "Never let a tragedy go to waste."

June 13, 2016