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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

George Washington (Image: The White House) ** FILE **

With primaries over, real election to begin

The primaries are at last over, and not a day too soon. Now Democrats and the Republicans can turn to dismantling each other in pursuit of the presidency. This should be a campaign to remember.

June 9, 2016
Hillary Clinton. (Associated Press)

WESLEY PRUDEN: Race gets tighter in California

The race for California's delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Cleveland six weeks hence is tighter than Dick's hatband, and nobody's head hurts more than Hillary's.

June 6, 2016
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

WESLEY PRUDEN: Bernie Sanders could upset Hillary Clinton in California

The acrid odor of Democratic panic, as real as the aroma of burned flesh and cordite on a battlefield, hangs over California in a dark cloud of confusion and uncertainty. "This is how it smelled in '64," says a stunned Democratic observer in Sacramento, "with [Barry] Goldwater charging and [Nelson] Rockefeller on the run."

June 2, 2016
Hillary Clinton (Associated Press) ** FILE **

WESLEY PRUDEN: The Clintons and the comeuppance at hand

Reckoning comes late to the Clintons, but it comes. Bubba has skated past a lot of transgressions, always counting on his gift of gab and his deep-dyed Southern charm to escape retribution. He played the charm card with consummate skill: "Aw, shucks, what can you do with a good ol' boy like me?"

May 26, 2016
President Obama in Hanoi. (Associated Press)

WESLEY PRUDEN: Turning President Obama loose in Asia

Barack Obama hasn't learned much in his seven years (and counting) in the White House, but he might have learned a little. He bowed to his Vietnamese hosts on arrival in Hanoi, but it wasn't the infamous back-breaking 180-degree bow he gave to the despots of the Islamic world in Cairo.

May 23, 2016
Hillary Clinton waves to the crowd before speaking during a campaign stop in Bowling Green, Ky., on Monday, May 16, 2016. (Austin Anthony/Daily News via AP)

WESLEY PRUDEN: Hillary Clinton hails a flying saucer to the White House

Hillary Clinton's campaign wizards, having seen what happened to Jeb Bush, are said to be worried about her "lack of energy." But there's nothing wrong with her imagination, her vision, her talent for building castles in the cosmos. She has come up with the season's most imaginative campaign promise.

May 16, 2016
Lord Nelson (From the portrait by Sir William Beechey)

WESLEY PRUDEN: When disaster stalks the weary land

Parlous times have descended everywhere. Barack Obama is so terrified by global warming that he wants to shut off further debate, perhaps to put the White House on stilts, lest the rising oceans soak the upstairs carpets.

May 9, 2016
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat (Associated Press) **FILE**

WESLEY PRUDEN: Running mates for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump

Now the fun begins. Everybody has an opinion on who the Donald and Hillary should pick for running mates. It's the most harmless fun of the campaign because none of the speculation means anything. But it might beat a game of Solitaire on a dark and rainy night.

May 5, 2016
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop Monday, May 2, 2016, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

WESLEY PRUDEN: More news to rattle the Republican elites

Public-opinion polls are great parlor-game fun, like Monopoly or charades, but if you're looking at a poll in May to determine the winner in November, you might as well consult a plate of chicken entrails. Be careful not to spill anything on the carpet.

May 2, 2016

WESLEY PRUDEN: Donald Trump confounds the Gaffe Patrol

The Japanese Zero was one of the most famous fighter planes in the South Pacific, bedeviling American pilots in the early days of World War II. The Zero was quick and nimble, darting from the clouds to inflict death and mayhem, and the Zero hit many a target.

April 28, 2016
In a Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, file photo, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter delivers a lecture on the eradication of the Guinea worm, at the House of Lords in London. A spokeswoman for Jimmy Carter says the former president does not need further treatment for cancer. The former president apparently shared the good news on Sunday, March 6, 2016, with those attending one of his regular Sunday school lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church in Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia.  (Neil Hall/Pool Photo via AP, File)

WESLEY PRUDEN: One last attempt to derail Donald Trump

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride to town on Saturday night, and if early polls determined presidents John McCain and Ross Perot would be playing poker with Harry Truman and Chester Alan Arthur in the ex-presidents club. But it's a rare beggar who owns even a spavined horse and John McCain and Ross Perot never got a key to the Oval Office washroom.

April 25, 2016
Harriet Tubman with a gun

WESLEY PRUDEN: Harriet Tubman a true heroine, right on the money

A lady with a gun deserves better than this. No sooner had Jacob Lew, the secretary of the Treasury, announced that Harriet Tubman, a fearless gunfighter against slavery, would soon replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill than snipers on left and right turned out in force.

April 21, 2016
Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Sunday, April 17, 2016, in Staten Island, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

WESLEY PRUDEN: How Donald Trump could defeat Hillary Clinton

It's a given among the tired, the poor and the voters tossed in the tempest of the presidential campaign that the noisy masses, yearning to breathe free of the smoke of battle, must resign themselves to the latest inevitability of Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump can't beat her, neither can Ted Cruz, and John Kasich is a pipe dream.

April 18, 2016
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch talks with police officers in Indianapolis as part of her national Community Policing Tour, Wednesday, April 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

WESLEY PRUDEN: The global warming assault on free speech

"Climate change" is all about us. Nearly everybody believes in it. Who could not? Sometimes a sunny day changes to rain, sometimes snow changes to sleet. The wind blows on Tuesday but changes on Wednesday, from knocking down trees to barely putting a ripple on the surface of the lake. Mark Twain, noticing that some things lie beyond the meddling of man, observed that "everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it."

April 14, 2016
Abraham Lincoln (Associated Press photo of the painting by George P.A. Healy). ** FILE **

WESLEY PRUDEN: Donald Trump’s lesson in politics in Colorado

Donald Trump has cut many sharp deals on his way to Billionaire's Row. Most of them were legal, maybe all of them were within what his lawyers told him they could successfully defend. But the Donald knows about sandbags and shortcuts. It's never personal, just business.

April 11, 2016
Former President Bill Clinton. (Associated Press)

WESLEY PRUDEN: Bill Clinton spells trouble for Hillary Clinton

Hillary's got a Bubba problem again, and it doesn't have anything to do with a loose zipper. She dispatched him to the hustings, where he has no living peer (except maybe Donald Trump), and he's giving her campaign a pain by telling it like it is.

April 7, 2016