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Wesley Pruden

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

Civil is nice, but winning elections is better

Everybody wants to go to heaven, the wise man observed, but nobody wants to die. It's not a puzzlement. Everybody wants kind and gentle in our politics, but nobody wants to risk losing an election. That's not such a puzzlement, either.

December 6, 2018

No. 41, the real ‘man in full’

No. 41 deserves all the warm, kind words he's getting, but they don't quite capture the man I got to know at the end of his presidency. The man in full emerged when the shadows began to lengthen, as they inevitably will for us all, and as the good days began to ebb.

December 3, 2018

A little hysteria can make the news go down

We're suddenly awash in so many crises capable of ending civilization as we know it that there's barely enough hysteria to go around. A worldwide hysteria shortage. Who knew?

November 29, 2018

Only a public hanging for the senator will do

When you're losing an election and you're not sure there's anything you can do about it, the modern Democrats have a sure-fire strategy: Cry "racist!!" (with not one but at least two exclamation points), and count on the illiterates in the media to do the rest. It works nearly every time.

November 26, 2018

It’s not war, but a remarkable skirmish at the top

Politics is what Washington does, and denying it long ago became an art form, practiced by Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal. There are a thousand ways to make the denial, some more eloquent than others. None are particularly believable.

November 22, 2018

A newer, hungrier kind of Democratic radical

Nobody is as insignificant in the Washington pecking order as a freshman member of Congress just off the turnip truck and into a maelstrom of ignorance and uncertainty all about him. One member of a freshman class of not so long ago recalls arriving at Reagan National Airport, finding his way through the terminal maze to curbside, and hailing a taxi.

November 19, 2018

The politicians are having it tough in Old Blighty, too

Britain and the envious Europeans are discovering that breaking up is hard to do, particularly when the Europeans want to keep the house, the car, the bank account and give up only the kids. The particulars of the deal were written by the British themselves, so you might not understand why any of them wouldn't like it.

November 15, 2018

A little corruption greases the wheels

Americans are an impatient lot. Given a choice between corrupt and incompetent, we're likely to choose corrupt. Both corrupt and incompetent is rarely popular.

November 12, 2018

Doesn’t anybody here respect us journalists?

The snowflake disease is catching. Donald Trump, of all people, tried to teach a couple of White House reporters a little needed manners this week and you might have thought he had repealed the First Amendment with an executive order.

November 8, 2018

So long to the end of the beginning

Just as soon as they get the dead carried out we can dispense with the last rites and continue the election that counts most. Ready or not, like it or not, the 2020 presidential election campaign begins this morning.

November 5, 2018

But is it still ‘the economy, Stupid’?

We're about to see whether James Carville, the dark genius of Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns, knew what he was talking about when he posted the famous warning to the Clinton campaigners in the war room of campaign headquarters in Little Rock: "The economy, stupid."

November 1, 2018

When ‘civility’ becomes all the rage

Mr. Dooley wouldn't understand our politics at all. Someone asked Finley Peter Dunne's mythical Chicago bartender-cum-philosopher where he was going in such a hurry with a pair of brass knuckles.

October 29, 2018

Never letting the outrage go to waste

The Washington bombers seem to be a curious collection of political partisans, music critics and aspiring killers.

October 25, 2018

The little surprises of October are at hand

The infamous October Surprise, without which we can't hold a November election, are soon upon us, and right on schedule there's a real one. Almost no one saw this one coming.

October 22, 2018

Looking for answers beyond the pale

Nobody in the West really understands the Arab mind. Killing a political adversary is understandable, though heartily to be disapproved of. But cutting up the corpse with a surgical saw, and doing it without first waiting for the poor guy to die, is beyond the Western, Judeo-Christian pale.

October 18, 2018

Playing percentages of the noble blood

There's no law saying how much Indian blood a body has to have to have to qualify as an Indian, but it's surely more than Elizabeth Warren's blood-o-meter registers. Donald Trump is clearly entitled to keep his checkbook in his pocket. He doesn't want to be an Indian giver, but he doesn't want to be a sucker for a pretty face, either.

October 15, 2018