White House Spokesman Tony Snow’s Cancer Has Returned
Bad news for White House Press spokesman Tony Snow, news that transcends political battles:
Presidential spokesman Tony Snow’s surgery to remove a small growth showed that his cancer has returned, the White House said Tuesday.Snow, 51, had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer. A small growth was discovered last year in his lower right pelvic area, and it was removed on Monday. Doctors determined that it was cancerous, and that his cancer had metastized, or spread, to his liver, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
She said Snow is resting comfortably after his surgery and has pledged to aggressively fight the disease with an as-yet-to-be-determined treatment course.
“He said he’s going to beat it again,” Perino said in an emotional morning briefing with White House reporters. “When I talked to him, he was in very good spirits.”
To read our earlier post about Tony Snow and his unique perspective on news that Elizabeth Edwards’ breast cancer had returned HERE.
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37 Responses to “White House Spokesman Tony Snow’s Cancer Has Returned”
This is terrible news, especially so soon after learning about Mrs. Edwards’ recurrence. Two admirable Americans , although with opposite political leanings, will have to learn to live with this disease. My prayers for them both and for their families.
I don’t know if Snow will be able to stay on as press secretary. When cancers metastasize beyond their initial sites (Stage 4), they’re generally not considered curable (like Elizabeth Edwards).
But how long either of them has depends on the cancer. I know that once lung cancers metastasize the average patient only survives a year. But colon and breast cancers tend to be less aggressive so they probably have more time, although it will certainly be no more than 5-10 years.
Snow probably expected this; when the entire colon is removed that usually means the tumor was very large and thus the patient’s long-term survival is questionable.
It is sad that the cancer spread in both cases. Liver cancer is very serious. I once again agree with Laura Ingram, she on more than one ocassion(no broken clock) comes back with reasonable analysis. She continued to work while battling cancer.
Yeah, this is terrible news. I may not like this administration, but I have no ill will for Tony Snow.
I wonder what Rush Limbaugh will have to say about this?
> I wonder what Rush Limbaugh will have to say about this?
1. Tragic! Horrible!
2. Maybe he’ll apply to be Snow’s replacement. Would he be boycotted by the DC media?
Sigh. I despise what he’s been doing in terms of lying for this administration but there are things I don’t wish on hardly anyone. The hardly is a qualifier for people like good old Adolph or Stalin. It takes that kind of evil for me to not mind if someone suffers like that.
DLS – Rush Limpbaugh won’t give up his day job, can’t give up those trips to Carribean Thai pleasure retreats.
Maybe he’ll apply to be Snow’s replacement
I hate to even think this, but isn’t that the general direction that we’re heading? Maybe we need a reincarnated Gerald Ford to rescue us from the political dungheap, and remind us why we are such a great, decent country!
Anyway my vote for a replacement goes to Stephen Colbert.
Well, I am somewhat cheered by the comments here…after coming from Wonkette where the comments were almost uniformly gleeful and vicious.
Apart from the smirking snark of the Wonkette post…which I thought inappropriate…it was truly depressing to read the comments.
Things are clearly becoming more toxic by the day, when all capacity for human empathy seems to be put aside in partisanship.
Joe had a good post on the Limbaugh sneers at the Edwards…but reading those comments was jarring. I don’t really have the stomach to see how DU or KOS are playing it.
In light of all of this, how can dialogue be possible in such an atmosphere?
Each side reinforces the other, I’m afraid- but it shows our growing lack of humanity, nonetheless. When this sort of thing happens snide partisanship is inappropriate. I hate to see people feeding off the misfortunes of others.
Kritter: major conservative bloggers (and commenters) responded with respect, dignity and compassion to the Edwards’ news. I read things today at ‘liberal’ blogs that made me… made me realize just how much some people are filled with hatred.
I won’t spend more time and attention on this matter, but I am quite shocked by what I read today.
MvdG- Well, if you want to put all of the hatred on the left, go ahead, but I have seen it on both sides. (and condemn both) BTW any nasty remarks about Snow are misplaced anger and frustration at Bush and Cheney.
AGain, I did not see stuff like that at major conservative blogs.
MvdG Could you link to those Liberal blogs that are saying bad things. I checked a handfull of the Lefty’s on the site here and didn’t find that much. Over at Crooks and Liers the commenters took someone to task for a mean spirited comment. Please back up your assertion…
I’m not going to say that its not out there- idiocy has no political party- just that neither side knows where to draw the line and so goes too far. Lefty blogs go too far sometimes (as after the VP’s near death experience) and the conservative commentators like Rush, Sean, Michelle and Ann go too far routinely. I recognize that they do not speak for many conservatives, still each has a huge following that will never reject them.
I don’t much like the man (though how a white house spokesperson can ever be likable is hard to know) but this is very rough. I’m glad to hear he’s still planning to fight, but liver cancer has a very bad prognosis in many cases. May he live life to the fullest as long as he can.
I liked his predecessor, Scott McClellan- he wasn’t as slick as Snow- but anyway best wishes for a long life snowing the WH press corps!
Unfounded “I read” or “I saw” statements without verification are pointless dribble. “I know a guy” doesn’t further an argument. Cite or get out.
On topic: not much of a fan of Snow. Compeltely dislike him. Think he has pretty much sold his credibility for pennies on the dollar, though the public speaking racket may reward him for time served.
That said, you can’t help but feel for a guy staring down death, pain, and disfigurement. I have to hope he gets well, even if when he’s well I don’t much care for him.
Rudi said: “MvdG Could you link to those Liberal blogs that are saying bad things. I checked a handfull of the Lefty’s on the site here and didn’t find that much. Over at Crooks and Liers the commenters took someone to task for a mean spirited comment.”
Rudi, as I noted, the comments at Wonkette were appalling, and pretty uniformly vicious. I did see the post at Crooks and Liars, from someone who had a cancer scare herself, that was positive.
I am not trying to score points here. I think Kritter’s comment was dead-on: “Each side reinforces the other, I’m afraid- but it shows our growing lack of humanity, nonetheless.”
I was just pretty bummed about the comments. I spent much of last year back and forth with my dermatologist, and spent the worst summer of my life waiting for successive tests and treatments that never seemed to work.
It is just depressing, that’s all.
God knows what Snow is going through, as he knows the prognosis as much as anyone.
You have to wonder why people would even be in political life, you know, knowing what one will be subject to.
It is just sad.
What is sadder than the disgusting comments on Wonkette is how some who read them immediately withdraw to their party’s corner. The split vision disease has infected just about everyone.
MVG is rightfully disgusted, as am I, but he links to a site that I stopped reading, not because of the posts, but precisely because of comments it attracts.
I checked a number of blogs, and most of them had either nothing (too early) or just a straight news announcement. Blogs like Think Progress had a stream of good wishes for Snow, but among them were some really hate filled comments from R-wingers (were they blaming progressives for the cancer?). On Daily Kos, Miss Blue sends her best wishes.
Here and there were good wishes with a reluctant tone to them.
Some of the comments refererred to nasty comments on Right blogs to do with Edwards(I’m not going to hunt them down.)
Folks, please come out from your corners. Let’s agree that the comments on Wonkette are sick. Let’s agree that Limbaugh is, well, what he is.
But let’s not keep score on each other. No side is pure and no side is the devil.
I refer you back to the post I did and with different takes on it others on the right and left have done on the tribalism of American politics. This meanspiritedness that you now see has not always been in this form. Who CARES if Snow is a Republican or a Democrat? I’ve been critical of him here on some issues and some of his pronouncements. He is a human being. My prayers are with him and his family.
Amen, brother Joe, Amen.
Joe and Michael,
And so say we all.
“any nasty remarks about Snow are misplaced anger and frustration at Bush and Cheney”
I disagree. Snow is a despicable person in his own right. His job is to obfuscate, dissemble and mislead the american public for his boss and he does it with gusto. While I am glad many here have taken a gentle tone I won’t be losing one second of sleep over that bastard rotting from cancer. I have no problem hating someone who is actively ruining this country by lying to us all on a daily basis.
Ah well, no need to look through the lefty sites, we have our own hater right here then.
Honestly although I agree about the comments at Wonkette (and now can add Sam to that group), I didn’t see a whole lot of that when I perused a few other left wing blogs, so fortunately I don’t think that sentiment is too widespread. I think it’s unfortunate though that some people would excuse wishing physical illness, harm or even death on another person for ANY reason, including their politics or position of power. It doesn’t matter if you hate what Bush, Cheney et al have done, it still doesn’t excuse personal hatred.
Joe said: “This meanspiritedness that you now see has not always been in this form.”
Joe makes a very interesting point, and one that I think is true.
Since I started following US politics in the 80s, things seem to have been growing steadily nastier.
I remember reading Tip O’Neill’s “Man About the House” years ago, and noting how as Speaker O’Neill…while he fought Reagan tooth and nail politically…actually liked Reagan personally.
Today, one sees on blogs — left and right, I hasten to add — people hating and wishing horrible things to happen to people whom they don’t know personally at all, but solely on their politics.
So what happened?
At what point did people decide to make the political personal (to adapt the feminist mantra)?
I wonder if…or how soon…we will be seeing these emotions come out in political violence and assassinations, as in Europe in the 70s?
Today, one sees on blogs — left and right, I hasten to add — people hating and wishing horrible things to happen to people whom they don’t know personally at all, but solely on their politics
I blame the rise of talk radio , the 24-hour cable chat shows, and the blogosphere. In the dark ages, when we had the big 3 network news anchors, there was much more civility, much less exageration and opinion was labelled as such. Now every little flaw is magnified, and biopsied to generate the maximum political outrage. I’m guessing that the extreme emotions that political activists posess is communicated to their representatives who then feel encouraged to get down and dirty with the other side.
One of the reasons I love TMV (thanks JOE and MvdG) is that there is tolerance here and no obscenities are permitted. I also love the ban on personal attacks- because that’s a rare commodity on the web.
Yes, KR,
I’ve been thinking about the blogsosphere all day.
The anonymity, no responsibility for what you say, that’s got to encourage people to let it all hang out. Even on tallk radio, there’s always the chance someone will recognize your voice. But just tapping on a keyboard, what freedom!
But this hatred! It’s like infectious spam.
Doma: yes, that is exactly it. Anonymity. People can say whatever they like, they will not be held responsible.
There’s also, I think, more to it than just that: to a degree, technology takes away the ‘human’ or ‘personal’ aspect. What happens is that one does not consider one’s opponent to be human.
My 2 cents.
And Kim: thanks – we do our best to keep it like that.
MdvG, it’s up to each of us to hold ourselves to a higher standard, if for nothing more than our own benefit. To borrow a line or 2 from Joe’s earlier Snow/Edwards post,
“The mili-second after each of us leaves this earthly scene, we’ll no longer be Republicans or Democrats or independents. Just souls.”
Sooner or later, we’ll all be held responsible for what we do or say.
Thanks to you, Joe and the rest of the TMV crew for maintaining a site where a higher standard is encouraged.
I would like to clarify that I do not wish a wasting, agonizing disease on anyone. Hearing Snow has the illness brings me no joy, but neither do I have any pity to spare. My dislike of the man stems from the fact that he is no mere talking head like Ann Coulter, that is what he used to be at FOX. Now, he is the face of the people that in my mind are making my country into a place where trials are seen as luxuries, selling our national debt to China to the tune of almost a trillion dollars, and basically foregoing any viable long term plans for this country across the board. All the while praising their own strength of character and firmness of leadership in the face of overwhelming evidence of incompetence. This administration is a sideshow and I feel like a passenger on a train with no conductor.
So yea, I do hate him and I’m not going to sugarcoat it.
[...] The Moderate Voice: Presidential spokesman Tony Snow’s surgery to remove a small growth showed that his cancer has returned, the White House said Tuesday. [...]
Kritter said: “One of the reasons I love TMV (thanks JOE and MvdG) is that there is tolerance here and no obscenities are permitted. I also love the ban on personal attacks- because that’s a rare commodity on the web.”
I have to second Kritter here…kudos to Joe, and MVG, and Shaun and the rest of the TMV crew.
There are too many “echo chambers” right and left in the blogosphere…where different voices and ideas are shouted down, and lumped in with “trolls”.
I was surprised, when I first came across Joe “Moderate Voice” last year, as it was like an oasis amid the “Oooh-Oooh-Oooh” chanting hordes of the blogosphere.
Folks here disagree and argue all the time, and consider each other raving loons I am sure (I can almost hear Kritter’s exasperated sigh in some of her replies to my comments
…but there is almost invariably respect and tolerance.
I think such spaces are valuable if the body politic is ever to heal of its self-inflicted wounds of the Bush-Clinton era.
Rudi wrote:
> DLS – Rush Limpbaugh won’t give up his day job,
> can’t give up those trips to Carribean Thai pleasure
> retreats.
I’m no talk show host but I’m willing to substitute for him there.
[imitation of Al Franken imitating Rush Limbaugh]
“Thisssssss issssss annnnnnnn unnnnnnnnnnimaginnnnnnnnnnabllllle tragedyyyyyyyyyy, myyy friendsssssssss…”
I only want to wish the best for Mr. Snow concerning his new situation. I find it quite difficult to believe the hatred for this man that many if not most have expressed in their replies above. Forget who he is for a moment and try a little compassion for a change.
Liver cancer is tremendously invasive and it’s fast. It normally does not appear as a small surgically removable growth on the liver. Unfortunately it’s pervasive by nature and shows up as an enlarged liver typically being wholly involved by the disease. Not an easy thing to treat. Again, I wish Mr. Snow the best and hope he makes string progress in his battle against this bout of cancer. The rest of you nasty basta*&’s can go to hell.
?????Um, as far as I can tell there was really only one “hater”. Everyone else expressed sympathy and good wishes for Mr. Snow. Many condemned the extremists on other sites.