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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. (Associated Press)

A collusion bombshell, but not on target

You've got to give the Democrats and their acolytes in the media credit for courage and a talent for tolerating bad taste and smell. It's not easy to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a corpse.

December 18, 2017
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., holds a news conference to talk about the Democratic victory in the Alabama special election and to discuss the Republican tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

All the Democrats need now are more child molesters

The Democrats are feeling ruff, tuff and ready for the coming battle, and why shouldn't they? They proved in Alabama that with a little help from the other side, a Democrat can still defeat a child molester.

December 14, 2017
Gloria Allred. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Big media’s sad and extremely horrible week

Newspapermen were rarely whiners. Whining became fashionable only after "journalists" overran newsrooms. The best newspapermen, so the folk wisdom went, were Southerners, Jews and the Irish.

December 11, 2017
James Comey (Associated Press) **FILE**

Robert Mueller’s mighty tuna shrinks to a goldfish

Robert Mueller has the heart of a Las Vegas hooker and the guile of a New Orleans stripper. Not to push the metaphor too far, he's skilled at showing a little skin in a cloud of satin and lace, but never quite comes across with what the customer is paying for.

December 4, 2017
Hedy Lamarr . (Associated Press) ** FILE **

When the prey becomes the predator

It's only a matter of time until the female of the species becomes predator, and is caught in the web of what the country preacher called "he'in and she'in," which has been the favorite game of men and women since Eve disdained perfection in the Garden of Eden.

November 30, 2017
Charles Manson. (Associated Press)

Charles Manson, stink of the ‘60s lives with us still

Charles Manson, perhaps the most wicked killer since the Nazis set up their abattoir in the Germany of the previous century, is gone now, banished by death to a decision at the judgment bar of God, from which there is no appeal. But we can measure the damage he and his times did here on our patch of Earth.

November 27, 2017
Hillary and Bill Clinton. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Recent sexual assault charges show so much testosterone on Capitol Hill

These are not happy times for anybody. You can't keep up with the serial sexual offenders without a scorecard, and the list grows longer every day and all the claims won't fit on one scorecard. Seekers of cash settlements are advised to not take checks, and hurry to the bank and get in line before the cash runs out.

November 20, 2017

Gropergate is crime of our century

When I was a young reporter on a certain newspaper in the South, fresh on a new job, I took a fancy to a sweet and pretty young woman (that's how we talked in those days) working on what newspapers quaintly called "the Society pages."

November 16, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a family photo during the ASEAN-U.S. 40th Anniversary commemorative Summit in Manila, Philippines, Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. (Manan Vatsyayana/Pool Photo via AP)

Donald Trump’s trip to Asia teaches us about trade

No one should be rude. Bad manners are not nice. Doesn't everybody's mama teach him that? Donald Trump certainly knows how to overdo it, but sometimes a president must be strategically rude to make a necessary point.

November 13, 2017
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is surrounded by reporters as she heads to go vote on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Saving opportunity from the Republican ruins

Second thoughts on the morning after the morning after are never as much fun as the champagne and caviar. Someone has to find the footnotes to the good news.

November 9, 2017
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., speaks as Facebook's General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter's Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google's Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado, testify during a Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017, on more signs from tech companies of Russian election activity. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ** FILE **

Texas massacre used by left to push gun control agenda

Shooting up a church, even in a small town where a lot of people voted for Donald Trump, is a wicked thing to do. Everybody -- well, nearly everybody -- thinks so. But some people are determined not to let a convenient massacre go to waste.

November 6, 2017
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Donna Brazile speaks during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ** FILE **

Democratic Party is in ruins

These are just not happy times for Hillary Clinton, and just when she thought the worst was over, the worst is just now in sight.

November 2, 2017
Hillary Clinton. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Hillary Clinton’s Russian collusion connection

The Clinton can is as full of worms as her harshest critics ever imagined it was, and now the worms are turning. Washington is agog, liberal and conservative alike, as the details of the spreading story of confusion, chicanery and crime in Hillary's campaign for president emerge from the dark and fetid places so abundant in the capital.

October 26, 2017
Roger Goodell. (Associated Press)

NFL owners use their own playbook

The owners of the National Football League finally came up with a playbook of their own. Beset by players who want to be political commentators who work from their knees, and by angry fans who only want to watch a football game without insult to the country they love, the owners consulted their playbook and think they can run out the clock.

October 19, 2017
Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, head of Austrian People's Party, smiles in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017, after the closing of the polling stations for the Austrian national elections. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) ** FILE **

Austrian election a thumb in the eye of the elites

The elites everywhere are having a hard time. When the peasants no longer salute, tug a forelock and obey with a whimper, even if with a snarl and a whine, you know you've lost your mojo.

October 16, 2017
Cyrus Vance, Jr.

Harvey Weinstein is guilty of much

Sometimes the lynch mob gets the guilty party, but that's not the way to run a railroad. We have laws, after all, even if some of them are subject to change. But due process is permanent.

October 12, 2017