RIP Tony Snow

Tony Snow is a commentator and analyst who will be missed greatly. He was one of the sane people in the news business, never delving into vitriol and vinegar, but unafraid to ask the important questions. He was blessed with an optimism many in the beltway could use, and let us hope there are budding journalists out there who value Tony’s contribution and who will follow in the example he set.

From Fox News:

Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, has died after a long bout with cancer. He was 53.

A syndicated columnist, editor, TV anchor, radio show host and musician, Snow worked in nearly every medium in a career that spanned more than 30 years.

Snow joined FOX in 1996 as the original anchor of FOX News Sunday, and hosted Weekend Live and a radio program, The Tony Snow Show, before departing in 2006. A sometime fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh, Snow said he loved the intimacy of his radio audience.

“It’s a tremendous loss for us who knew him, but it’s also a loss for the country,” Roger Ailes, Chairman of FOX News, said Saturday morning about Snow, calling him a “renaissance man.”

The news business could use more like Tony, it would certainly help their sagging ratiings. Tony had three characteristics that I’ve always noted: a deep abiding faith, a love of truth, and an indefatigable optimism.

Below are some quotes from Tony that exemplify these:

Every one of our greatest national treasures, our liberty, enterprise, vitality, wealth, military power, global authority, flow from a surprising source: our ability to give thanks.

Sure, science involves trial and error. Scientists refine theories each day. But as they do, they help us grasp more clearly the wonders of the world and the universe.

That said, ID does not qualify as science because it gives us nothing to test or measure. Science requires replicable tests involving measurable variables.

Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues.

We believe. We believe in our destiny as a nation. We believe we have been called to do good, to spread the blessings of liberty and encourage the sense of trust upon which free societies depend.

We’ve got to rebuild human hearts – and persuade people that hope isn’t just possible, but essential.

Well, we can’t afford blindness anymore. There are tens of thousands of thugs who loathe liberty and love death, and want to annihilate Western civilization.

Yet, it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully – love, lust, longing; joy, rage, fear; triumph, yearning and confusion.

2 thoughts on “RIP Tony Snow”

  1. This is very sad indeed. There are very few people like him, and there are even less in the media business.

  2. Tony Snow was one of the greatest. I’ll never forget him and
    Tim Russert and their smiles….

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