Remembering Tony Snow

Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow speaking at the Reagan Library (Reuters)

But the greatest pressure Snow would face wouldn't come from the podium or the press room, it wouldn't come from his commentary or his columns, it would come from his greatest fight, the one that would ultimately claim his life in the early hours of the 12th of July 2008, his battle with the disease that had claimed his mothers life so many years before. Even as he found himself on the temporary road to recovery he would say he could feel it "stalking" him.

By Citizen Correspondent Wyatt McIntyre

Date Posted: 07/12/08

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A Journalist, Press Secretary, political pundit, and advisor to two Presidents, almost 30 years Robert Anthony Snow, known to all around him as Tony, began his rise from his humble Ohio roots to the pinnacle of a career that would make his a household name.

The son of a inner city nurse and a school teacher, Snow had learned of the nature of tragedy at a young age, losing his mother to a battle with colon cancer when he was 17 years old. Where some let moments like that define them, the younger Snow would battle on, though even in later years it was hard not to see the emotion of that loss seep through when he would talk about it. Snow would go on to attend and graduate from Davidson College, a small Liberal Arts Institution in Davidson, North Carolina.

Over the next decade Snow would begin to build his career and his reputation as a Editorial Columnist, starting in his college state of North Carolina and working his way to the editorial page editor of The Washington Times. With time he would become known as one of, if not the most conservative editorialist's of any of the metropolitan newspapers in America. While at the Washington Times he would offer political commentary most notably on the trial of embattled D.C. Mayor Marion Barry in 1990 and Attorney General Edwin Meese's firing of Spokesman Terry Eastland.

In 1991 the journalist would put aside his press badge and enter into the White House, not to interview then President George H.W. Bush or to offer commentary, but as a Speech Writer. It wouldn't be long before his expertise as a journalist and working in the media would be put to use by the President, charging him with the task of serving as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Media Affairs. It would be short lived. Losing the 1992 Presidential Election to Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton Bush would join the ranks of former presidents and Snow's leave from Journalism would come to an end.