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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

British Prime Minister David Cameron

PRUDEN: Extracting oil and gas: When bad news becomes good news

You just can't please the apple-knockers, soreheads and doom-criers. Everyone who ever sat in a long line back in the 1970s, waiting for an hour or two to get a few gallons of gasoline, often entertained himself with a fantasy of big oil strikes to put the Saudi princes in their place, preferably on a planet in an obscure universe far, far away.

July 30, 2013
Grover Cleveland

PRUDEN: When Obama mails it in

Barack Obama is bored. You can see it in his demeanor and in his face, the way anticipation becomes melancholy. Most of all you can hear it in his voice when he steps up to make the speech that once sent audiences into frenzy. He's mailing it in (with postage due).

July 26, 2013
** FILE ** Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder speaks at a news conference in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

PRUDEN: Waiting for the repo man in Detroit

Someone knocked on the door at city hall in Detroit last week and there stood the repo man, coming to take possession of the city. Everyone who has ever bought a car knows you have to keep up the payments. Miss three or four and the car, with all its bells and whistles, is gone.

July 23, 2013
Herbert Hoover

PRUDEN: The full-time White House horror show

Everything about President Obama's grand takeover of everyone's aches and pains puts the pain in a new place. The only relief he can promise is that the pain is more tolerable today than it will be tomorrow.

July 19, 2013
**FILE** In this Oct. 3, 1995, photo, O.J. Simpson (center) reacts as he is found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ronald Goldman, as members of his defense team, F. Lee Bailey (left) and Johnnie Cochran Jr., look on in court in Los Angeles. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: George Zimmerman trial: A bitter lesson in the law

The prosecutors of George Zimmerman need a refresher course in criminal law. If you're a prosecutor and you believe you are putting an evil-doer away, first you have to convict him. This means proving he's an evil-doer by proving who did the evil act.

July 16, 2013
Attorney Alan Dershowitz. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini) ** FILE **

PRUDEN: Waiting for a verdict in the George Zimmerman trial in Florida

An inattentive lawyer can ruin his case with one badly prepared witness. The prosecutors of the case against George Zimmerman no doubt rue the day they put Rachel Jental on the witness stand, but their case was weak and ineffective, anyway. Soon we'll see what the jurors think. Theirs, after all, is the only opinion that counts.

July 12, 2013
** FILE ** Author Norman Mailer is shown in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

PRUDEN: Who’s the most opinionated in town? MSNBC

Bias is hard to measure because, like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder. But the Pew Research Center tried to put numbers on it and they've codified what everyone already knows. Bias is an art, not a science, and their conclusions won't settle many arguments.

July 9, 2013
**FILE** Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: Obamacare called ‘The fiasco for the ages’

Nancy Pelosi told us there would be days like this. The only way to find out what was in Obamacare was to pass it and see what happens. Congress passed it, the messiah signed it, and we're beginning to see what happens.

July 5, 2013
** FILE ** President John F. Kennedy delivers his inaugural address after taking the oath of office at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 1961. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: No gallantry for Hillary Clinton

Gallantry, like common sense, dignity, good manners and truth-telling, long ago disappeared from public life in America, so Hillary Clinton is asking for a rough ride if she runs for president in 2016. She doesn't have to look beyond the other side of her bed to see who did more than anyone else to push those homely virtues aside.

July 2, 2013
** FILE ** In this March 8, 2012, file photo, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

PRUDEN: A bigger bed for the honeymoon

No closet was big enough to hold Anthony Kennedy, but he came out of something dank and dark somewhere to liberate the gay caballeros. It certainly wasn't the law. Not even the law could accommodate the purple emotional theatrics he poured into the Supreme Court's decision rendering the Defense of Marriage Act null, void, mean, cruel, worthless and probably fattening.

June 28, 2013
U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet during their joint news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Obama will renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

PRUDEN: Barack Obama’s really bad trip

Berlin hadn't seen bombing like this since the allies turned the city into a wasteland in the spring of 1945, when American B-17s and B-24s, British Lancasters and Russian heavy artillery took turns making the rubble bounce. This week the bomb was the bomber himself, and when the day was done, the legend of the irresistible eloquence of Barack Obama lay in shreds and tatters.

June 21, 2013
**FILE** Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: Immigration reform to gag on

The Democrats pushing immigration reform want the issue, not the reform, and they think a defeat they could hang on the Republicans could give them a shot at keeping the Senate and taking the House next November. Then they could enact a law to give everybody who wants one an American passport. This would guarantee unanimous election results, like those in the squalid places the illegals are fleeing.

June 14, 2013
** FILE ** Former President George W. Bush speaks as President Obama listens during the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Thursday, April 25, 2013, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, Pool)

PRUDEN: Would the government lie to you?

Trust us. Would your government — and the private contractors your government hires to do the work — do anything bad? Snooping into the intimate details of the lives of everyone is not nice. Besides, it could be worse, and that's all the proof anyone needs to see that it's not really bad at all.

June 11, 2013
** FILE ** Samantha Power, President Barack Obama's nominee to be the next U.N. Ambassador, listens to Obama speak in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 5, 2013, where he made the announcement. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

PRUDEN: When a bow is not deep enough

A deep bow to our "friends" in the Middle East no longer satisfies Barack Obama's White House. His new ambassador-to-be to the United Nations has a better idea. Samantha Power thinks the president should take a deferential knee. (It worked for Al Jolson, paying tribute to Mammy.)

June 7, 2013
**FILE** Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's top law enforcement official, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 15, 2013, before the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: Funeral rites for a perfidious presidency

Drip, drip, drip. And then the deluge. After that the roof falls in. The perfect storm dashing Barack Obama's second term onto the rocks is not the consequence of a sudden squall. This storm has been a long time coming.

May 31, 2013
** FILE ** Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., at a party in Hot Springs, Ark., Tuesday, May 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

PRUDEN: Mike Bloomberg’s gun accident

Michael Bloomberg obviously knows a lot about making money, even about the politics of Manhattan, where his money speaks in the loud and unctuous voice liberals love. But he doesn't know diddly about life where the rest of us live it.

May 28, 2013
**FILE** President Obama is greeted by then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton for his ceremonial swearing-in on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 21, 2013, during the 57th Presidential Inauguration. (Associated Press)

PRUDEN: Bubba, the weenie and a New York minute

Just when Bubba and the missus get an opportunity to dispense experience unique in American politics, and could tutor two old friends who need help, they retire to the companionable solitude of the family hearth to reflect on the Scriptures and to bask in the piety of each other.

May 24, 2013