Richard A. Lowry (born 22 August 1968) is the editor of National Review, a conservative American news magazine, and a syndicated columnist.
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Lowry was born in Arlington, Virginia and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1990 and won second place in National Review's Young Writer's Contest. He joined William F. Buckley's National Review in 1992 and has been the magazine's editor since 1997.[1] He regularly appears on the Fox News Channel. He has guest-hosted on Hannity and Colmes and Fox & Friends, and is a guest panelist on PBS's The McLaughlin Group, Fox News Watch, and NBC's Meet the Press.
Lowry refused to fight Al Franken when challenged in jest in 2000.[2]
In 2002, Muslim organizations called for Lowry to apologize,[3] after he posted a message on National Review Online's blog, "The Corner", discussing the "nuking" of Mecca, as retaliation for a terrorist attack.[4][5]
His book, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years[6] is a polemic about President Bill Clinton, whom he deprecates as "Navel-Gazer-in-Chief."[7] He also has a syndicated column with King Features. He once served as a guest on The Colbert Report.
Most recently, Lowry and Keith Korman wrote Banquo's Ghosts, a fiction novel published by Vanguard Press in 2009.[8] The political thriller's plot revolves around a nuclear-armed Iran and an inebriated leftist journalist.[9]
Lowry has held that in extreme circumstances, the practice of waterboarding "belongs in a murky space short of unambiguous torture."[10][11][12]
Following the 2008 Vice Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Lowry gained some publicity[13][14][15][16] and was selected as then-MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World[17][18] for writing: "A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, 'Hey, I think she just winked at me.' And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.".[19]