Christopher Buckley

Christopher Taylor Buckley (born September 28, 1952) is an American author and political satirist.

He also served as chief speechwriter to Vice President George H. W. Bush.

He is known for writing God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, and The Judge Hunter.

Buckley is the son of writer and Firing Line host William F. Buckley Jr. and Patricia Buckley.

After receiving a classical education at Portsmouth Abbey School, Buckley worked his way around the world as a deckhand on a Norwegian tramp freighter.

He graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1976.

He joined the staff of Esquire magazine in 1976 and seven months later was promoted at age 24 to managing editor.

In 1980 he returned to sea aboard an American ship and made eight mid-winter transatlantic crossings between U.S. Gulf ports and North Sea ports in England and Germany.

In 1981, he moved to Washington, D.C. to become chief speechwriter to Vice President George H.W. Bush.

The experience was the basis for his first bestselling non-fiction book, Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter, published in 1982.

His first bestselling novel, The White House Mess, published in 1986, was a satire on White House office politics and political memoirs.

Buckley and Gregg have two children, Caitlin and William, born in 1988 and 1992, respectively.

In 1989, Malcolm S. Forbes hired Buckley to start up a supplement to Forbes magazine.

Buckley was editor-in-chief of Forbes FYI, later Forbes Life, from 1990 to 2007.

His 20 books have been published in 16 languages.

His novel Thank You For Smoking was adapted to the screen and directed by Jason Reitman.

In 2000, Buckley's son, Jonathan, was born to former Random House publicist Irina Woelfle.

In summer and fall 2008, Christopher Buckley wrote the back-page column for National Review, the conservative magazine founded by his father.

In October 2008, Buckley wrote a column endorsing Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, choosing to have it published in The Daily Beast to avoid backlash from National Review readers.

After many National Review readers and contributors still expressed their displeasure, Buckley resigned from that publication.

The Beast's title for his endorsement, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama", was found by many of his father's friends and supporters to be offensive, particularly as it appeared shortly after his father's death.

Buckley disavowed the choice of title, although he continued to occasionally write for the Beast.

Buckley's first marriage was to Lucy Gregg, the daughter of Donald Gregg, who served as assistant to Vice President Bush for national security affairs and later as United States Ambassador to South Korea.

Buckley and Gregg divorced in 2011.

In 2012, he married Dr. Katherine "Katy" Close, a physician.

She has four children.