Rich Lowry

Life and career

Lowry was born on August 22, 1968 in Arlington, Virginia, the son of a social worker mother and an English professor father. He grew up in Arlington, Virginia. After graduating from Yorktown High School in Arlington, Lowry attended the University of Virginia, where he studied English and history. He was editor of the Virginia Advocate, the school's conservative monthly magazine. After graduating, he worked for Charles Krauthammer as a research assistant, and later worked as a reporter for a local newspaper in northern Virginia.

In 1992, Lowry joined William F. Buckley's National Review, after finishing second in the magazine's young writers' contest. In the summer of 1994, he became the articles editor for National Review and moved to Washington DC to cover Congress. In November 1997, Lowry became editor of National Review at the age of 29, taking over from John O'Sullivan who succeeded Buckley in that position ten years earlier. At the time, Buckley said of Lowry, "I am very confident that I've got a very good person."

As a political columnist, Lowry has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and a variety of other publications. In addition to his syndicated column with King Features, Lowry is an opinion columnist for Politico. He has also contributed essays to Time magazine.

As a political commentator, he regularly appears on the Fox News Channel, KCRW's Left, Right & Center and has guest-hosted on Hannity. He was a frequent guest panelist, along with Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, and Mort Zuckerman, on the long-running PBS series The McLaughlin Group. He is also an occasional panelist on Sunday shows, including NBC's Meet the Press and ABC's "This Week."

Lowry has written two non-fiction books. His New York Times best-selling book, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years is a polemic about President Bill Clinton, whom he deprecates as "Navel-Gazer-in-Chief". In June 2013, he published the political biography Lincoln Unbound. Lowry has also written fiction. In 2009, Lowry and Keith Korman wrote Banquo's Ghosts, a political thriller. The plot revolves around a nuclear-armed Iran and an inebriated leftist journalist.

Criticism of Donald Trump

Lowry has been critical for a number of reasons of U.S. President Donald Trump, his fellow New Yorker. In the summer of 2017, when Trump criticized in public the performance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Lowry arose editorially to Sessions' defense. Trump expressed dismay over Sessions' earlier recusal of himself in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The recusal soon led to the hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel in the Russian matter. Lowry accused Trump of "lacking gratitude" because Trump seemed to forget that Sessions, before he was appointed attorney general, was the first senator to endorse Trump for president:

He obviously doesn't feel any respect for someone who, as an honorable person with a long career in public service, deserves it. ... He doesn't care about propriety, which would dictate dressing down Sessions in private, not flaying him in public. And, finally, he doesn't feel any obligation to Sessions, despite the fact that Sessions gave up a safe Senate seat to serve in his administration.

Works