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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

Wilbur Mills

PRUDEN: Getting serious about November

Now we can get serious about November. Gone, if Mitt Romney intends to apply sufficient pressure, are the silly and irrelevant sound-bite wars. No more “Romneyhood,” the bon mot the president is so proud of. Likewise, Mr. Romney can retire “Obamaloney” to the same schoolyard.

August 14, 2012
Innocent pig

PRUDEN: October panic for mid-August

Panic is never pretty, and it leads men to say foolish things — even presidents and their friends and flunkies. The wicked flee when none pursue, but sometimes they flee when facts are gaining on them.

August 10, 2012
The Joker

PRUDEN: Hollywood and box-office terror

Hollywood is terrified of the backlash against the movie violence that has become its stock-in-trade. This time the big moguls, and some of the little moguls, can see that the public is angry, but they don’t know what to do about it.

August 3, 2012
President Obama

PRUDEN: The Jewish dilemma for Barack Obama

The Democrats have a Jewish problem, and his name is Barack Obama. Many Jews, loyal Democrats by birth and tradition, have concluded reluctantly that he’s not The One they thought he was.

July 31, 2012
Jesse Owens

PRUDEN: Trouble, trouble at the Olympics

Mitt Romney, the businessman with an eye for what’s going wrong, can’t resist the temptation to critique what he sees. A cliche-monger would call him a “problem-solver.” Others would call him a pain in the neck.

July 27, 2012
**FILE** James E. Holmes appears July 23, 2012, in Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo. Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 58 in a shooting rampage in a movie theater on July 20 in Aurora, Colo. (Associated Press/Denver Post)

PRUDEN: ‘The greater love’ survives a massacre

Gloria Steinem was wrong. Once in a fit of frustration, she rolled her eyes, stamped her feet and declared that "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." This became a battle cry in the war between the sexes.

July 24, 2012
John Paul Jones

PRUDEN: Fighting clothes for Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney has fighting clothes in his closet, after all. He has taken them out twice over the past fortnight and his new duds have made a difference already.

July 20, 2012
John Nance Garner

PRUDEN: The sure cure for newsroom blahs

You can blame the heat. Blame midsummer boredom. You can even blame ennui, what the French and the pretentious call "boredom." But if you're a political junkie, the only cure for the July blahs is to pick the vice president.

July 17, 2012
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

PRUDEN: There’s no time for grown-ups

Campaign politics is all about pandering. You can't expect a candidate to show up to talk anything but drivel when his survival is on the line.

July 13, 2012
**FILE** Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, speaks April 5, 2012, in Berkeley, Calif. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: The new terrorists — they’re all of us

Barack Obama, the Chicago messiah who promised to unite a fragmented nation, is succeeding beyond his dreams, and maybe even the dreams of his father, which he wrote about so eloquently in his campaign autobiography.

July 10, 2012
Andrew Jackson

PRUDEN: Putting us all on the dole

One in seven of all Americans is now on food stamps, but that's not enough for the bureaucrats at the Department of Agriculture.

July 6, 2012
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. arrives for a lecture on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court at the Old University of Malta, in Valletta, Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Chief Justice Roberts' cast the key vote last week to uphold President Obama's health care law. (AP Photo/Lino Arrigo Azzopardi)

PRUDEN: The seduction of Chief Justice Roberts

The much-anticipated operation was a brilliant success, but the patient died. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a clever surgeon, and he left a bloody mess to prove it. He's in the Mediterranean now, on the island of Malta, lecturing to European lawyers about how to "grow" in office, basking in the applause of fans of the welfare state.

July 3, 2012
** FILE ** Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

PRUDEN: The court’s gift to Mitt Romney

Now the fun begins. Nothing can fire the anger of an American like the arrogance of a government lawyer with his foot on the throat of a helpless citizen, and the justices of the Supreme Court are the government lawyers with the biggest feet of all.

June 29, 2012
President Obama

PRUDEN: There’s campaign cash in brides

Barack Obama was so flush with campaign loot four years ago that he wouldn't even take the government's money. He was confident that he could play the dairy farmer and milk Democratic cows on his own. He was right. There were cash cows aplenty.

June 26, 2012
Marco Rubio

PRUDEN: A revolution by another name

A revised Dream Act, which could have dealt in an orderly way with the children of illegal aliens in our midst, is dead. Barack Obama couldn't wait to get the corpse out of the parlor.

June 22, 2012
Ira M. Lowe

Ira M. Lowe, colorful D.C. lawyer, dies at 88

Ira M. Lowe, a colorful Washington lawyer whose apartment in Kew Gardens in Georgetown was a way station for counter-culture organizers, celebrities, artists and other figures during the turbulent 1960s, died June 11 at his home after a lengthy illness. He was 88.

June 20, 2012
Slave shoe

PRUDEN: Adidas and Nike: Ignorance runs in on stinky feet

Here's an inviting opportunity for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the rambling revs who are always on the scout for a lucrative corporate target. Or even President Obama, who is eager to slice and dice the electorate and assign each slice something to take offense at on his way to Nov. 6.

June 19, 2012
Angela Merkel (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: Obama looking for love in lonely places

Unrequited love is a sad and mournful thing, as any teenager could tell you. Barack Obama, too. His European friends, who swooned with such ardor four years ago, are cooling off.

June 15, 2012
President Obama

PRUDEN: Counting racists lurking among us

Only bigots, racists, fanatics and right-wing zealots vote against Barack Obama. This is received theology in the Church of Liberalism, preached ad nauseam in 2008, and it's a major Democratic doctrine this year as well. Only now it's "scientific fact," not merely accusation.

June 12, 2012