ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlLqJdEpQFE1IsewIi1OAFbFHN1AD91SA36O0
Go to Google News Tony Snow smiles as he is introduced by President Bush as his new Press Secretary in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington in this Wednesday, April 26, 2006 file photo. Fox News is reporting Saturday July 12, 2008 that conservative commentator and former White House press secretary Tony Snow has died of cancer. "Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend, Tony Snow," Bush said in a statement. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character." Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program "Fox News Sunday" from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying "the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I'm ever going to have." Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras. With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster's good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook -- if not always a command of the facts -- he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work," Bush said. "His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humor." He served just 17 months as press secretary, a tenure interrupted by his second bout with cancer. In 2005 doctors had removed his colon and he began six months of chemotherapy. In March 2007 a cancerous growth was removed from his abdominal area and he spent five weeks recuperating before returning to the White House. He resigned as Bush's chief spokesman six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president's policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing. Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates. Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush "something of an embarrassment" in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's "lackluster" domestic policy. Most of Snow's career in journalism involved expressing his conservative views. After earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1977 and studying economics and philosophy at the University of Chicago, he wrote editorials for The Greensboro (NC) Record, and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. Snow left journalism in 1991 to join the administration of President George HW Bush as director of speechwriting and deputy assistant to the president for media affairs. He then rejoined the news media to write nationally syndicated columns for The Detroit News and USA Today during much of the Clinton administration. Survivors include his wife, Jill Ellen Walker, whom he married in 1987, and three children. Associated Press writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
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