
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

This is who we are now
This was never about the price of eggs, writes Eileen McNamara. If only “inflation” did explain the nation’s historic embrace of a wannabe dictator who stokes racial division and celebrates...

Ethel Skakel Kennedy wasn't afraid to die
Eileen McNamara interviewed Ethel Kennedy in 2016. The interview, scheduled for 30-minutes, stretched on for three-plus hours. There was so much fun in Ethel's stories and so much laughter in...

The Supreme Court just handed Trump a new shield: 'official-acts immunity'
In this ruling, the Supreme Court's conservative majority — which regularly crows about its fealty to the original intent of the U.S. Constitution — have ignored the explicit counsel of...

12 ordinary citizens did what Congress failed to do
The verdict against Donald J. Trump is a pivotal moment for the nation, writes Eileen McNamara. The evidence was irrefutable. It was a clean sweep: Guilty on all 34 counts.

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...
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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...

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.

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.

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.

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.