Eileen McNamara

Cognoscenti contributor

Eileen McNamara is an emerita professor of journalism at Brandeis University. The author of a biography of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, she won a Pulitzer Prize as a columnist for The Boston Globe.

Recently published

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses with supporters after a voter rally at St. Cecilia Music Center on February 10, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no Jack — or Bobby — Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is exploiting his family’s political legacy in his delusional bid for the White House, writes Eileen McNamara. The Super Bowl ad is only the most recent...

Cognoscenti

Feb 14, 2024

Harvard President Claudine Gay attends a menorah lighting ceremony on the seventh night of Hanukkah with the University's Jewish community on December 13, 2023, in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

Ousting Claudine Gay from Harvard was always about the money

The uproar over Claudine Gay was never about plagiarism or antisemitism, writes Eileen McNamara. It is about the corporatization of American higher education and the collapse of free speech on...

Cognoscenti

Jan 3, 2024

US Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks to U.S. Representative Marjorie Tayor Greene (R-GA) on the floor of the US House of Representatives at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 4, 2023. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

This Republican Party is a long time coming

For all his complicity in this relentless chaos, the disorder in the GOP predates Donald Trump by at least four decades, writes Eileen McNamara.

Cognoscenti

Jan 5, 2023

Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman speaks to supporters with his family during an election night party on November 9, 2022 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Fetterman defeated Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

The press should put away its crystal ball

Here’s an idea for journalists: get out of the business of prognostication and speculation, writes Eileen McNamara.

Cognoscenti

Nov 9, 2022

Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker addresses the crowd of supporters during a campaign stop on October 20, 2022 in Macon, Georgia. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

We need not accept the sordid world Trump left us

The party of Lincoln has decided that being unmoored from reality is a winning political strategy, writes Eileen McNamara. Vote.

Cognoscenti

Nov 4, 2022

Supporters of President Donald Trump participate in the Million MAGA March to protest the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, in front of the US Supreme Court on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images)

The Supreme Court is stacked against democracy

The racketeering enterprise that is the modern Republican Party has succeeded in defrauding Americans of their right to majority rule, writes Eileen McNamara.

Cognoscenti

Jun 30, 2022

President Joe Biden speaks to the nation about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, from the White House, in Washington, Tuesday, May 24, 2022, as first lady Jill Biden listens. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

After Uvalde, Democrats need to stop posturing — and start acting

Blame Republicans all you want, writes Eileen McNamara, but we must also acknowledge the failure of Democrats to move the needle on gun control and so many other issues overwhelmingly...

Cognoscenti

May 25, 2022

The smaller lessons of the pandemic

There are so many big lessons we have learned during two years living and dying with COVID-19, writes Eileen McNamara. But there have been smaller lessons, too, no less important.

Cognoscenti

Mar 11, 2022

Gov. Charlie Baker acknowledges applause as he takes the stage to address the Massachusetts Republican Convention at the DCU Center in Worcester on April 28, 2018. (Winslow Townson/AP)

Charlie Baker's empty suit

The governor likes to tout his managerial bona fides, but Eileen McNamara says they do not hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

Cognoscenti

Dec 3, 2021

A week after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, a newspaper vendor sells copies of the New York Daily News with the face of Osama bin Laden and a cowboy-era outlaw's headline of 'Dead or Alive,' September 18, 2001.(Richard Baker/ Getty Images)

For My Journalism Students, Much Of 9/11 Is A Case Study Of What Not To Do

As we mark the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, writes Eileen McNamara, let’s not forget the abandonment by too many in the media of the skepticism and rigorous reporting...

Cognoscenti

Sep 9, 2021