Pundits Brooks, Dionne to Discuss Presidential Campaign

Posted on Aug. 18, 2008

David Brooks of The New York Times and E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post will discuss the 2008 presidential campaign at 7 p.m. Sept. 9 at UNC.

Brooks and Dionne come to UNC as the Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professors in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

The free public discussion will be in Memorial Hall on Cameron Avenue. No reservations or tickets are required. Limited parking may be available in the Cobb Parking Deck on Country Club Road and, for $1.25 per hour, in the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center lot on Franklin Street, as well as in town pay lots on Rosemary Street.

Brooks began writing his op-ed column for The New York Times in 2003. He also has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly, and a commentator on PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal, where he was an op-ed editor and was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and European affairs. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983.

Brooks has written two books on contemporary culture: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.

Dionne began writing his twice-weekly op-ed column for The Washington Post in 1993; it is now published in more than 100 newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. He joined The Post in 1990 as a reporter covering national politics.

His best-selling book Why Americans Hate Politics was published the next year. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award. He also wrote Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps and the Politics of Revenge (2004) and, most recently, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right (2008).

Dionne previously worked for The New York Times, reporting on state and local government, national politics and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome and Beirut. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

The Frey Foundation Professorship was established in 1989 to bring to campus distinguished leaders from fields including government, public policy and the arts. The late Edward J. and Frances Frey of Grand Rapids, Mich., established the foundation in 1974. Their son, David Gardner Frey ’64, who also earned his law degree from UNC in 1967, chairs the foundation.

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