Staffers at the Washington Times just don’t get a break, do they? Apart being regularly lambasted for working for a money-bleeding newspaper owned by the odd Rev. Sun Myung Moon, now they’re getting a in-depth look into the struggle for the paper’s leadership.

This week The Nation features as its cover story a 4,200-word expose on the battle between current Editor-in-Chief Wesley Pruden and Preston Moon, the reverend’s son. According to the piece, Pruden, now approaching 70, is looking to tap Managing Editor Francis Coombs as his successor, a move opposed by Moon, who is looking to bring the newspaper back towards the middle of the political spectrum. Within the power struggle are a number of details concerning Pruden and Coombs, many of which would seem to verify everything we’ve ever suspected about the Times:

Both Coombs and Pruden, meanwhile, are facing a litany of complaints from former and current colleagues of racism and sexual harassment. More than a dozen well-placed sources spoke to The Nation. Many wished to remain anonymous, for fear of jeopardizing their jobs. Others spoke on the record. But the sources are consistent about the atmosphere Pruden and Coombs have fostered inside the paper, which they describe as profoundly demeaning and abusive to women and minorities.

So serious have the claims and counter-claims gotten that Moon has hired a high-powered law firm to investigate them while Pruden and Coombs have threatened to call a news conference at which they would accuse Moon of trying to inject Unification Church propaganda into the paper’s coverage.

But maybe things aren’t as serious as The Nation claims. Today Fishbowl DC has posted a memo written by Pruden in which he claims that he is staying on as the paper’s head honcho, and argues against the rumors of the internal conflict:

The Internet makes fantasizing easy and tempting, but you need not be concerned about church politics, the speculations of addled idle minds that would be more usefully employed at Alcoholics Anonymous, or whether Martin Walker, Howell Raines or even Max Blumenthal will suceed me. (Put your money on None of the Above.) The owners of The Times are pleased with what we have built here on New York Avenue, a newspaper of worldwide consequence that the founders could never have imagined. They have told me so. People who spread rumors and talk to rumormongers just have too much time on their hands, and should, in their retirement, get another hobby.

Hmmm. That last sentence makes it seem like Pruden is out to find out who talked, what they said, and how he’d best like to “retire” them.