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Patrick Hruby

phruby@washingtontimes.com

Patrick Hruby was a writer for The Washington Times.

Articles by Patrick Hruby

Political online ads go viral, but are they viable?

Once upon a time, political ads were simple, falling into two cliched categories: warm 'n' fuzzy soft-focus personal appeals and scathing critiques of rival candidates, rife with unflattering photographs and exploding hydrogen bombs. No longer.

February 8, 2012
**FILE** This undated photo shows guests at an Alikewise.com launch party at the Gallery Bar in New York. (Associated Press)

Estranged bedfellows: Liberals, conservatives also split on sex, romance

If you've ever wondered whether America's near-tribal political polarization extends to romance — whether an Ann Coulter-Keith Olbermann wedding would, in fact, be weirder than a Herman Cain campaign advertisement — social science at long last has provided a tentative answer. Yes. And duh!

February 6, 2012
A screen capture of a video of Newt Gingrich and Hillary Rodham Clinton attending a 2005 policy forum is seen here. The video was uploaded to YouTube by Andrew Kaczynski.

Flip-flop cop: Young video researcher keeping GOP candidates honest

Picture this: Newt Gingrich discussing national health care, arguing for wealth redistribution and an individual insurance mandate, all while sitting next to Hillary Clinton, the whole discussion caught on videotape. A sneaky, fact-fudging attack ad, unleashed by a rival presidential contender or enemy super PAC? Not exactly.

January 30, 2012

Six slogans for Obama re-election campaign

Four years after the triumph of "Hope," "Change" and "Yes, we can!" President Obama reportedly is looking for a 2012 re-election slogan. Luckily, we're here to help.

January 18, 2012
Oil and coffee "are two dark, black liquids that run this country," says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. The standard 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee contains 330 mg of caffeine — the equivalent of three No-Doz pills. (Associated Press)

American caffeine addiction races full speed ahead

From the 24-ounce Cafe Americano to the 64-ounce Mountain Dew Double Gulp, from ubiquitous coffee shops to the widespread use of the prescription drug Ritalin (read: legal speed) as a campus study aid, we are one nation under a buzz, indivisible from our next fix, with 5-Hour Energy shots and caffeine-spiked chewing gum for all.

January 17, 2012
President Obama holds hands with his daughters Malia (left) and Sasha as they leave Sea Life Park, a marine wildlife park, with family friends on Dec. 27 in Waimanalo, Hawaii. (Associated Press)

Top 5 ‘let them eat cake’ moments of the Obama White House

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, have prompted complaints for hosting a lavish, unpublicized "Alice in Wonderland" White House Halloween party in 2009 featuring director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp, all while the country struggled with high unemployment and the lingering economic fallout of the Great Recession. This isn't the fist time the Obamas have drawn such scrutiny. Herein, the first couple's top "Let Them Eat Cake" moments.

January 10, 2012
Newt Gingrich's girth surely could be a target in the race to be the Republican presidential nominee. Will it cost him? "Study after study after study shows the same thing. Weight bias is a highly prevalent form of discrimination, more common than other forms that have protection within our laws," says Yale University's Rebecca Puhl (Associated Press)

Will anti-fat bias affect the 2012 election?

As if Newt Gingrich doesn't have enough problems after his disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses under a barrage of blistering attack ads, here's one more to consider: his weight.

January 4, 2012

The Kennedy Center Dis-Honors

A wise man — possibly the Apostle Paul, probably Osgood Fielding III from "Some Like It Hot" — once noted, "Nobody's perfect." In the cases of Neil Diamond, Meryl Streep and the rest of this year's Kennedy Center honorees, that maxim is worth remembering. Otherwise, their formidably accomplished, mostly spotless resumes would be unbearable. With that in mind, we present our first-ever Kennedy Center Dis-Honors, kidding only because we love.

December 1, 2011

Norquist takes unorthodox path to find his comedy

OK, Washington joke: Grover Norquist walks into his downtown office. There's a bronze bust of Ronald Reagan, a towering stack of books, and on the windowsill of the nation's most powerful anti-tax activist rests an oversized front page from the Onion, a satirical newspaper.

November 29, 2011
Coolidge High School varsity football coach Natalie Randolph is in her second year of coaching and some of the novelty of a woman heading a boys football team has worn off. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

Coolidge’s Natalie Randolph is in charge on, off the field

A year and a half after garnering national attention by becoming one of a handful of women to become a high school football head coach, Natalie Randolph has guided the Coolidge Colts to an 8-2 record and a berth in today's D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championship game — the "Turkey Bowl."

November 23, 2011
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at a parliamentary dinner in Canberra, Australia, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Alan Porritt, Pool)

Red, white and goo: Has America gone soft?

Has America gone soft? Seen our once formidable, can-do economic, cultural and geopolitical six-pack abs devolve into a can't-be-bothered muffin top of belt-buckle-busting, Snuggie-swaddled goo?

November 16, 2011
While all three comics in Laughter Against the Machine — from left, Janine Brito, Nato Green and W. Kamau Bell — are "lefty, progressive people," their self-professed goal is to provoke (read: offend) audience members of every political persuasion. (Photo courtesy Laughter Against the Machine)

Can the political left laugh at itself?

Political humor trio Laughter Against the Machine is on a coast-to-coast tour they dub a "comedic peacekeeping mission to the most polarized quagmires" in the country. They'll be at the D.C. Arts Center on Thursday night.

November 9, 2011
Occupy Wall Street protester Ashlie Lauren Smith, a music student from Cincinnati, screams about the $90,000 she owes in student loans at a Times Square rally on Saturday. The protests in New York and other cities have been a source of new material for comedians and satirists. (Associated Press)

Satirists mock Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street has yet to force compliance with its "demands" — but by one indicator of contemporary cultural relevance, the nascent movement already has made an impact: People are making fun of it.

October 14, 2011
** FILE ** Martin Luther King Jr. (Associated Press)

Will Obama soar or bore on Sunday’s King dedication?

Almost 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave arguably the most powerful American political speech of the 20th century: "I Have a Dream." An impassioned call for racial equality. A soaring vision of social unity. A moral and stylistic tour de force, rife with literary and biblical references, delivered in the urgent, gripping cadence of a Baptist sermon, a 17-minute oratorical masterpiece that remains stirring and resonant to this day.

October 13, 2011