E.J. Dionne, Jr.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, and university professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University. He spent 14 years with the New York Times, reporting on state and local government, national politics, and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. His best-selling book, Why Americans Hate Politics (Simon & Schuster), was published in 1991.

Dionne began his op-ed column for the Post in 1993, and it is syndicated to more than 100 other newspapers. He has been a regular commentator on politics on television and radio. His second book, They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (Simon & Schuster), was published in February 1996. Dionne’s Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge (Simon & Schuster) was published May 2004. His most recent book is Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right (Princeton University Press, 2008).

Dionne grew up in Fall River, Mass. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Harvard University in 1973 and received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1994-95, he was a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. In 2006, he gave the Theodore H. White Lecture at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Dionne has received numerous awards, including the American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award to honor a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics. He has been named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by the National Journal and among the capital city’s top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine. He was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2002, he received the Empathy Award from the Volunteers of America, and in 2004 he won the National Human Services Assembly’s Award for Excellence by a Member of the Media. He lives in Bethesda, Md. with his wife Mary Boyle and their three children, James, Julia, and Margot.