PARTING THOUGHTS...

PARTING THOUGHTS… July 14, 2008
Early Saturday morning, former White House Press Secretary and Fox News host Tony Snow died after a long battle with cancer. Tony was an articulate conservative, always able to best present the conservative point of view in a concise, eloquent couple of sentences.

Tony went to the White House after the failure of Scott McClellan’s tenure as White House Press Secretary. The White House needed an articulate spokesman who understood the media, and could easily express the Administration’s policy positions in a way that played to the cameras in the White House Briefing Room. At the time of his arrival, the situation in Iraq was not going as well as the Administration had hoped and the country believed that it was a mistake and we should get out as soon as possible. While the public still holds this position, it would have been even stronger had someone else been at the podium.

Tony’s briefings were not just a quick statement of Administration policy. Rather they were, in a lot of cases, policy discussions. Tony did not always agree with the premise of the questions or statements from reporters and he often challenged the reporters to prove what they were sating. He typically knew more about the issue than the reporter and it was rather interesting seeing the reporters squirm after pontificating for the camera’s only to be shot down based upon faulty assumptions. However, Tony didn’t shoot them down maliciously; rather he did it with the facts and with humor.

Tony’s tenure at the White House was short. He had a recurrence of colon cancer that forced him to miss some time and following his return, he left to make some money on the public speaking circuit in order to take care of his family. A lot of us grew up reading Tony Snow’s columns in newspapers ranging from the Detroit News, Washington Times, and USA Today. We watched him as he hosted Fox News Sunday, and listened to his Fox radio show. We also listened to the speeches of former President Bush, where Snow ran his speechwriting efforts. He also was a long time fill-in for Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. Tony was able to express the conservative beliefs in a manner that everyone understood.

America lost a public servant this weekend. While you might not agree with his politics, one must respect the effort he put forth and his service to the country. He believed that there were certain things of more importance – family and service to our country. These are traits that we should all live by.