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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 Brennan

PRUDEN: The tall talker and the old geezers

Nobody drones on like a U.S. senator and nobody loves the sound of his raspy voice like a U.S. senator. Rand Paul, the freshman from Kentucky who stars in the bad dreams of every Republican geezer in town, talked for almost 13 hours on the Senate floor this week to delay a confirmation vote on John O. Brennan as director of the CIA, and earned only the scorn of the geezers.

March 8, 2013
Good ol’ Bubba

PRUDEN: The fire sale at the White House

Bubba was a piker. The Clinton White House sold sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom that were cheap at the price. Barack Obama is auctioning off access to His Grandiosity for really big bucks. Unlike Hillary, Michelle doesn’t even have to straighten up the room and make up the bed when the guests leave.

March 5, 2013
Richard Nixon

PRUDEN: A White House under siege by reality

“Sequestration,” which sounds like an impolite stomach ailment that almost nobody can spell and few understand, now gets really interesting. With the sequestration deadline having passed, the White House is under siege by reality.

March 1, 2013
Mayor Bloomberg

PRUDEN: The Gotham nanny who jerks sodas

These are frantic days for the man the Manhattan tabloids call the Soda Jerk. Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is reviewing his troops, readying the SWAT teams for his campaign to beat back the crime wave sweeping over Gotham.

February 26, 2013
Bonnie and Clyde

PRUDEN: Beware of good ol’ Joe Biden and his guns

Joe Biden, a gun nut. Who knew? The veep never fails to entertain, even when he’s trying not to, and this time his boss is probably not amused. Joe famously pushed President Obama to endorse same-sex marriage by sniffing the orange blossoms first, but if his advice for Americans to buy a shotgun to protect the homeplace was an attempt to convert the president to a Second Amendment aficionado, he’ll no doubt fail.

February 22, 2013
**FILE** John Brennan (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: All of President Obama’s googly men

Barack Obama's entitled to a soft spot in his heart for whatever and whomever he pleases, and it's none of anybody's else's business. But a soft spot in his head, that's another matter.

February 12, 2013
Charles Dickens

PRUDEN: The death penalty is not what it used to be

A national movement to abolish capital punishment is growing, state by state. Maryland is expected soon to become the 18th state to repeal death-penalty laws. Nevertheless, taking a life for taking a life still seems like a good idea for millions of Americans.

February 8, 2013
Gun nut

PRUDEN: Obama: Shooting blanks at the pigeons

President Obama has probably put the Secret Service on this one, and the FBI, the CIA and the D.C. cops, too. Who came up with that really dumb idea of putting out an official White House photograph of the president stalking clay pigeons with his shotgun?

February 5, 2013
Louis Farrakhan

PRUDEN: Obama: The skeet shooter among the pigeons

Barack Obama is really just one of the guys. He wants to take away Joe Sixpack’s guns, but he wants everybody to know that he’s a shooter and intends to keep his own shootin’ iron.

January 29, 2013
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

PRUDEN: The craven retreat of the generals

Wars are won despite the generals. Every historian knows that. Combat is no place for a woman. Every grunt knows that. So do most women. Only generals are confused.

January 25, 2013
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton look on during the public ceremonial inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol January 21, 2013 in Washington, DC.   Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term as President of the United States.  (Photo by POOL Win McNamee/Getty Images)

PRUDEN: Some good advice from ol’ Bubba

Nobody wants rain on Inauguration Day. For the partisans among us — and that includes approximately half of us, give or take a few hundred thousand — it’s a day for celebration of the nation and its history, the continuity of its institutions, and the promise of the future.

January 22, 2013
President Obama listens to reporters' questions in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Monday, Jan. 14, 2013. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: The second time and the thrill is gone

Like rekindled romances, presidential inaugurations are rarely much fun the second time around. Been there, done that, the bloom is off the rose, familiarity breeds boredom, et al. Barack Obama can't believe that deja vu comes even unto him.

January 18, 2013
** FILE ** Colin Powell, a secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with President Obama in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington in December 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

PRUDEN: The long season of rage ahead

Barack Obama is laying out a revolutionary agenda for his second term, and he’s calling up his heaviest artillery to enforce the transformative presidency delayed in the first. The campaign to confirm Chuck Hagel will be no campaign for the fainthearted summer soldiers who know only small-caliber combat.

January 15, 2013
**FILE** Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: A miracle cure with estrogen in Congress

John A. Boehner thinks there’s too much of Barack Obama in Washington. Most of the Democrats think there’s a surplus of impertinent Republicans. Chris Christie says it’s Congress that turned Washington rancid. Everybody agrees something is rotten on the Potomac.

January 4, 2013