E. J. Dionne

E. J. Dionne
Born	Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. April 23, 1952 Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation	Author, columnist
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University Balliol College, Oxford
Subject	Religion, history, politics, left-wing politics
Spouse	Mary Boyle
Children	James, Julia, Margot

Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. (/diːˈɒn/; born April 23, 1952), known as E. J. Dionne, is an American journalist and political commentator, and a long-time op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He is also a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at the McCourt School of Public Policy, a Senior Research Fellow at Saint Anselm College, and an NPR, MSNBC, and PBS commentator.

Life and career

Dionne was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 23, 1952, and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts. He is the son of the late Lucienne (née Galipeau), a librarian and teacher, and Eugene J. Dionne, a dentist.^[1][2] He is of French-Canadian descent.^[3] He attended Portsmouth Abbey School (then known as Portsmouth Priory), a Benedictine college preparatory school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Dionne holds an A.B. summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University (1973), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was affiliated with Adams House. He also earned a DPhil in Sociology from Balliol College, Oxford (1982), where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Dionne's published works include the influential 1991 bestseller Why Americans Hate Politics, which argued that several decades of political polarization was alienating a silent centrist majority. It was characterized as radical centrist by Time magazine.^[4] Later books include They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996), Stand up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and Politics of Revenge (2004), Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right (2008), and Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent (2012).

Dionne is a columnist for Commonweal, a liberal Catholic publication. Before becoming a columnist for the Post in 1993, he worked as a reporter for that paper as well as The New York Times. He has recently joined the left-liberal The National Memo news-politics website.

Dionne lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Mary Boyle, and three children, James, Julia, and Margot.

Writings

• Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 978-0671682552
• They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. ISBN 978-0684807683
• Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America (editor). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1998 ISBN 0815718675
• Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 978-0743258586
• Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 0691134588
• Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. ISBN 1608192016
• Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016. ISBN 978-1476763798

References

1. Fletcher, Paul (May 5, 1988). "Fall River native E.J. Dionne returns as New York Times political reporter". The Providence Journal. Retrieved 2012-07-21.
2. McCarthy, Sean (March 22, 2012). "Columnist E.J. Dionne has fond memories of Fall River". SouthCoastToday.com. Retrieved 2012-07-21.
3. "Q&A With Bob Levey". The Washington Post. March 7, 2000. Retrieved 2012-07-21.
4. Duffy, Michael (May 20, 1991). "Looking for The Radical Middle". Time magazine. Retrieved February 21, 2013.

External links

• Washington Post columns
• Brookings Institution page
• Georgetown Faculty web page
• Interviewed by David Axelrod, "The Axe Files"
• NPR page
• Truthdig page
• Biography from the Washington Post Writers Group
• "Conversation with History" interview
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• E. J. Dionne at Goodreads
• Booknotes interview with Dionne on Why Americans Hate Politics, August 25, 1991.