As Good as His Words

Spokesman Tony Snow Earned Press's Respect

From the moment he took the White House podium, Tony Snow was a pugilist and performance artist, relishing the daily combat with White House correspondents.

When Martha Raddatz's cellphone went off during a briefing -- her son had programmed the ring with a rap song -- Snow made the ABC reporter blush by proclaiming, "Play that funky music, white girl."

"You could get into some pretty serious back and forth with Tony," Raddatz says. "You could make each other angry. But when you walked out of there it was over. He was a really genuine guy."

Snow, who died Saturday at 53, had the knack of making people like him, even those he would slap around as a commentator, television host or presidential press secretary. He once told CNN's Ed Henry to "zip it" during a tense exchange over the war, but would later flash that smile and let you know he could separate the personal from the political. CBS's Jim Axelrod had a phrase for it, saying Snow knew how to play the "affability card."

No one clashed with Snow more sharply than David Gregory, to the point that the White House spokesman accused the NBC correspondent of being partisan. When Gregory asked why President Bush had not acknowledged more shortcomings in an assessment of the battle against terrorism, Snow accused him of expressing "the Democratic point of view," prompting a vigorous objection from Gregory.

"Let's not let you get away with being rude," Snow said.

"Excuse me, don't point your finger at me," Gregory said. "I'm not being rude."

"Yes, you are," Snow insisted.

After one such exchange, Snow mulled over his words for days and then apologized. "He was really a mensch about it," Gregory says. "He said he was wrong. He said that to me, and then he said it publicly."

When Snow suffered a recurrence of the cancer that he had battled the year before becoming Bush's spokesman, it was Gregory who persuaded him to participate in a day-in-the-life piece. That included a chemotherapy session at Georgetown University Hospital, with cameras rolling.

"I could just never look at him the same way," Gregory says. "We're both dads. I was just thinking about him, his wife, his kids, and what a decent guy he was."

Snow was such a self-assured figure, at least in front of a microphone, that he didn't mind reciting the stage directions. Asked once about how then-Speaker Dennis Hastert was handling the House page scandal involving Florida lawmaker Mark Foley -- which Snow had dismissively described as a bunch of "naughty e-mails" -- he told reporters: "I will dodge it, and I will tell you exactly why I'm going to dodge it." It was spin with a grin, pleasantly delivered.