EJ Dionne

E.J. Dionne Jr. employs his passions for people and politics and his keen intellect to deliver reasoned analysis that is followed by a wide circle of policy-makers nationwide – on the left, right and center. In his columns as well as his appearances as a commentator for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Dionne demonstrates that he “knows the present with the keen sense of a beat reporter and the past with the perspective of a scholarly historian” (America Magazine, 2008). William Safire, writing in The New York Times, said in 2008 that Dionne is “emerging as one of the most insightful of the liberal columnists.”

Dionne began his now twice-weekly op-ed column for The Washington Post in 1993. In 1996, it was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, and he now appears in more than 100 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Before joining The Post in 1990 as a reporter covering national politics, 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. The Los Angeles Times praised his coverage of the Vatican as the best in two decades.

His 2008 book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right (Princeton University Press) was praised as “deeply personal and searchingly intelligent” by The New York Times Book Review and as “an insightful look into the intersection between religion and politics” by The Wichita Eagle. Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge (2004) and They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate The Next Political Era (1996) were both published by Simon & Schuster on the heels of his best-seller, Why Americans Hate Politics (1991). The book was hailed “a classic in American political history” by Newsday, and it earned a National Book Award nomination and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

In selecting Dionne as its 1996 recipient of the annual Carey McWilliams Award to honor a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics, the American Political Science Association called Dionne “one of Washington’s finest journalistic thinkers …. His tireless efforts uplift the public … in a time that cries for reasoned debate, not more negative ads, rumor or simplistic sound bites.” In 1997, he was named one of the 25 most influential Washington journalists by National Journal and among the capital city’s top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine.

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