The Washington Times takes a giant step—backwards

But while some conservative leaders are courting minority groups, one of the movement’s ideological lodestars is taking a hard turn in the other direction. Last month, The Washington Times tapped Wesley Pruden, its one-time editor in chief, who was pushed out amid allegations that he allowed racism to fester in the newsroom, to run its Commentary section. Pruden’s return—part of a wide-ranging shakeup following the death of the Times’s founder—is a troubling sign for the opinion pages, long a key pipeline for conservative ideas and a training ground for right-of-center pundits.

Under Pruden’s leadership, from 1992 to 2008, the Times became a forum for the racialist hard right, including white nationalists, neo-Confederates, and anti-immigrant scare mongers (all of which the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Nation magazine have documented at length). Pruden’s own column, Pruden on Politics, was occasionally tinged with racial animus, too. In 2005, for instance, he lambasted the Senate for succumbing to “manufactured remorse” and passing a resolution of apology for blocking anti-lynching laws during the Jim Crow era.