As has been reported Tony Snow will depart his position with the administration on the 14th of Spetember. At yesterdays press conference a question was posed about the President to which Mr. Snow gave the following response.

Q Tony, have your views of the President or the press changed since you have been on the inside for the last year? Have you seen things differently than you might have when you were on the outside?

MR. SNOW: Well, I think that anybody who works closely with the President gets a much fuller appreciation of the person in the office. So, while I was naturally inclined to like the President, my admiration for him has grown by leaps and bounds.

Some of you have had the opportunity to see the President behind closed doors, talking with passion and in great detail about the job he does and the challenges he faces. And you find that, quite often, the public caricature of this man is a grotesque disservice to the man himself and to the job he does. And so there’s always a certain level of frustration when you see a man who is bright, who is engaged, who is passionate and who is principled being written off in kind of cartoonish terms by people who would rather appeal to stereotype than dig deep and figure out, in fact, he makes decisions.

But he’s a great guy to work for. And he’s somebody who manages to understand the real importance of the office, and also how important it is to conduct oneself in the office in a way that reflects honor upon it. And, at the same time, he’s somebody who has terrific historic insight. He’s not somebody who is going to allow himself to get whipsawed by passing controversies. He understands what his long-term obligations are to the country and to the office.

He has a wonderful sense of humor; he is generous; he is extremely kind. And he is somebody that I will be holding up to future friends, employees, and always to my children as a role model, not merely in terms of how he manages the office and conducts the responsibilities of the office, but the kind of person he is. He’s a good guy, a good human being.

I do not believe for one minute his assessment of the President is out of some false sense of loyalty. I believe he spoke from the heart which is something we see far too little of today in Washington.

Think of Tony’s words what you may, but if you really think of President Bush, the man, I believe he defined him very well.

(You must scroll down a bit to locate the above portion of the Press Conference)