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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

PRUDEN: A soap opera for our time

This hasn't been much of a presidential primary campaign, but even yellow-dog Democrats have to concede that it's a first-class soap opera. We haven't had sexy scenarios like this since Bubba was a boy.

January 20, 2012

PRUDEN: Another grovel, not a rebuke

Where's a Porta-Potty when a few good men need one? This is the question Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense, ought to concern himself with, instead of trying to top Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, with over-the-top "outrage" over a Marine patrol taking a leak on the bodies of several freshly killed terrorists in Afghanistan.

January 17, 2012

PRUDEN: A crawl through the fairy dust

No one has accused Ron Paul of being a crawler, but he sometimes channels Mr. McGoo with his angry rhetoric against the wars in the Middle East. If he were president, he said last summer, he would bring home the new generation of grunts from Afghanistan "as quickly as the ships could get there." Ships would find it hard going in land-locked Afghanistan, but we take his point.

January 13, 2012

PRUDEN: ‘Obama’ is how you spell relief

Conservatives are fractured, split and mad at each other, brawling like Democrats. There's only one man who can unify the movement. Fortunately for the Grumpy Old Party, Barack Obama is available, ready and eager.

January 10, 2012

PRUDEN: Castor oil and all the dorks

This is the Year of the Dork, and they're all running for president.

January 6, 2012

PRUDEN: The night the music stops, or pauses, for GOP presidential candidates

Tonight's the night the music stops, if only for a pause, and the Republican game of musical chairs eliminates several candidates who have outlived their welcome in living rooms across the land.

January 3, 2012

PRUDEN: More than Iranian malarkey in the Strait of Hormuz

It isn't saber-rattling by Iran that's making noise in the Middle East, but rhetoric-rattling. Nobody does it better. The latest purveyor of big malarkey is the chief of the Iranian navy, who would execute the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in answer to the Western sanctions against Iran for its work on a nuclear weapon.

December 30, 2011

PRUDEN: A little humility at the ‘climate research’ crossroads

"Climate research," the New York Times confidently assures us, "stands at a crossroads." This means that a lot of research scientists are standing at the crossroads, holding out paper bags like trick-or-treaters on Halloween night, standing in line for taxpayer largesse to fill 'em up.

December 27, 2011

PRUDEN: The amazing grace of Christmas morn

The strip malls and the Main Streets will once more fall silent. The ringing cash registers and the happy cries of children will be but ghostly echoes across silent streets. 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 23, 2011

PRUDEN: Kim Jong-il: Sharing a grave with evil aplenty

History loves irony, as Professor Gingrich could (and no doubt will) tell us. Two men renowned for their deeds die more or less on the same day on opposite sides of the world. The bad guy gets the big headline, the good guy makes the front page one last time as a footnote to the times.

December 20, 2011

PRUDEN: Winning the war against ‘civility’

If only the peasants would sit up and pay attention, the liberal nannies could straighten out "the mess" in Washington overnight.

December 16, 2011

PRUDEN: GOP debate pundits: Fluff, trivia and the real thing

If we can get through the last of the Pundit Primaries, the actual Republican voters can get on with the business of choosing the man to liberate America from Barack Obama. But the path to presidential power is strewn with little rocks who imagine they're mighty boulders.

December 13, 2011

PRUDEN: Deadly peril in a fantasy world

If only those pesky Jews would shut up and submit, all would be right with the world. Allah could be praised. Such is the emerging Democratic strategy for making peace in the Middle East. Only this week, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, and Leon E. Panetta, the secretary of defense, sent reassurances to the region that they're eager to see Israel brought to heel.

December 9, 2011

PRUDEN: A marketing lesson for Republicans

There may even be lessons here for the political parties and the voters who make the final judgments of politicians. The Democrats have a particularly sorry record of tweaking ineffective "brands," sending the likes of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry into the November marketplace. The Republicans have a sorry record, too, tweaking the likes of Bob Dole and John McCain, and now seem to be flirting with sending Newt Gingrich into the highest-stakes game in town. You can't always freshen up the label, no matter how hard you try.

December 6, 2011

PRUDEN: Stricken by an excess of excess

The Christmas season is hard upon us and it's time to be happy and gay. (Uh, better make that cheerful.) But it won't be easy. The culture has been poisoned by an excess of excess.

December 2, 2011

PRUDEN: Presidents in the Age of Twitter

Thomas Jefferson collected old books and French wines, Warren Harding collected poker buddies, and FDR collected stamps. Harry S Truman collected sheet music and played the piano. But not so long ago, wife-collecting was regarded as over the line. Cats do it, dogs do it and even educated fleas are said to conduct serial impermanent romances. But presidents were held to a tougher moral standard.

November 29, 2011

PRUDEN: If only pigs really could fly; deficit supercommittee fails

The congressional super-duper, new-and-improved deficit committee, organized to enable Congress to do what it was sent to Washington to do, failed.

November 24, 2011

PRUDEN: Newt Gingrich: Another flavor at the GOP soup kitchen

Now it's Newt's week to be the new and improved temporary seasonally impermanent flavor for the Republican primary campaign. He's entitled to his week in the front row. Republicans are big on taking turns, which is why they occasionally nominate sad sacks like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole and John McCain.

November 22, 2011

PRUDEN: When an ‘Occupy’ tantrum gets a little old

When you're bored, broke and mad at everybody, including Mom, throwing a tantrum is fun. Three-year-olds entertain their mommies with such noisy fits all the time. When regiments of tantrum-throwers get loose on Wall Street, they make the front page. The Occupy Wall Street movement spilled a little blood Thursday in New York City — nearly all of it the demonstrators' own, but for an occasional cop's skinned knee or twisted thumb — "film" at 11. Or long before that, on an Internet blog

November 18, 2011