Thank You Tony Snow

Ralph Waldo Emerson didn't know Robert Anthony Snow. If Emerson had ever met Tony he wouldn't have penned "There is a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism," because Tony Snow so thoroughly proved the contrary.

Always the gentleman, always the optimist, Tony Snow embraced life with an infectious sense of joy.

I was disappointed when he left Fox News for his role as spokesman for the White House, afraid that he was surrendering a commanding position in the media for an impossible task as a flack. No flack he. Tony Snow became the most credible and successful media educator in White House history.

Tony has left, but his smile remains. A lesson to all. As he said, courtesy of The Corner,

We shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Our prayers go out for the repose of his soul and the comfort of his family.

Tony Snow is the only person I know to truly wear the mantle of Ronald Reagan.