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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

In this June 21, 2017, file photo, special counsel Robert Mueller departs after a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Robert Mueller’s report may be just the beginning

Robert Mueller is said to be hitting his old textbooks from law school, perhaps an early chapter on how to keep the clock running on a rich client. Lawyers charge by the hour and a clever Blackstone can keep the meter running until the 12th of Never.

February 21, 2019
T.D. "Daddy" Rice

A curtain call for the Virginia Minstrels

Virginia has always had a weakness for minstrelsy, but the current epidemic of low officials in high places auditioning as lovers and blackface minstrels is something almost new.

February 7, 2019
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam waves to the gallery as he prepares to deliver his State of the Commonwealth address before a joint session of the Virginia General Assembly at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Monday, Jan. 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) ** FILE **

The long, painful slide down the slippery slope

We're not any longer talking about abortion, the issue that has bitterly divided us for decades. Now we're talking about the step beyond interfering with the process of creating a human life. We're talking about "murder," perhaps the ugliest word in the language.

January 31, 2019
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is seated during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for Steven D. Dillingham to be director of the Census, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) ** FILE **

The Democrats attempt to exploit the failure of Congress

Congress, the butt of so many jokes over the centuries of the American experiment, may have stumbled onto a quack cure for what ails it. Some senators, of both the Republican and Democratic persuasions, are talking about passing a law to require Congress to stifle itself when it is called on to deal with a budget.

January 28, 2019
Neither Fred nor Ginger

The best and worst times for America

These are the best of times, these are the worst of times. (Charles Dickens only thought his age was confused.) You only have to read the newspapers to see why.

January 24, 2019
Michael Cohen. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

A sad day for the gentlemen of the press

The New York Times thinks ours is "a golden age for journalism." The press, the Old Gray Lady says, "has come through with some investigative work that can stand with the finest Watergate-era reporting."

January 21, 2019
Karl Marx (Associated Press) ** FILE **

It’s an unkind cut and Gillette takes it on the chin

Business schools are growing like weeds in the nation's universities, many of them endowed by the smart, the clever, and the innovative upon whom capitalism has not merely smiled, but laughed out loud.

January 17, 2019
Judge Amy Barrett. (Associated Press)

The graveyard ghouls and a lather of speculation

Not all ghouls live in the graveyard. Some of them are busy in the capital sunshine, making book on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's chances of returning to the U.S. Supreme Court and staying there to assist in the rendering of Donald Trump and his administration as dead as one of those graveyard ghouls.

January 10, 2019
Nancy Pelosi. (Associated Press)

A tear for the schoolmarm teaching civics to the House

A schoolmarm's lot, like that of a policeman's, is not a happy one, particularly if her lot is a roomful of noisy children whose ignorance is boundless and who have only a small ambition to do anything about it. Shed a bipartisan tear for Nancy Pelosi.

January 7, 2019
Jimmy Carter. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

A lot of noise before the storm

Thursday was a strange day in Washington. There was the changing, not of the guard but of half of the Congress, and Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats acted as if she were Franklin D. Roosevelt (in drag) and it was 1932 and "happy days are here again."

January 3, 2019
Elizabeth Warren   Associated Press photo

Witches, Presbyterians and the Booger Man

The Booger Man's gonna get you if you don't watch out. That's the media's message in the finding that at last there are more witches and wiccans than Presbyterians out there, waiting to pounce.

December 31, 2018
Theresa May

The lady at bay in Old Blighty

Theresa May, who has mismanaged Britain's exit from the European Union, won her vote of confidence in the House of Commons this week, and now she's in the hard place the country preacher found himself after winning a vote of confidence to unify his congregation, soothe hurt feelings and make peace with his deacons.

December 13, 2018
Harry S Truman at the piano with Lauren Bacall. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

A modern president and his tweet stuff

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. Once he played it at the National Press Club, with Lauren Bacall draped across the upright with a helping of cheesecake. Bess, the first lady, was not amused.

December 10, 2018