Condolences are offered to his family in their time of grief.

Words from the President:

All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer. One of the things that sustained Tony Snow was his faith – and Laura and I join people across our country in praying that this good man has now found comfort in the arms of his Creator.

President Bush’s full remarks on his former Press Secretary and friend here.

[Update]Virginia Shanahan echoes what I believe is the sentiment of many who felt they knew and greatly admired Tony Snow:

I did not know Tony Snow, and I never met him, but he made me feel as if I did. He had a profound impact on my life. I truly learned from this man, and I will miss him. My prayers are with his family and friends.

Thanks Anchoress for the link and welcome to readers from her site.

Video HT: johnny dollar’s place

What a class act Tony Snow is and what a shame he wasn’t the president’s press secretary for all of his term.

I’m going to miss him.

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)

I will be sorry to see Tony Snow leave his position in this administration.

Tony has been a very effective communicator for the White House and has had a flair for words at the Press Briefings which we haven’t seen in a very long time.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who has been battling cancer, plans to step down on September 14 and he will be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, a U.S. official said.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto confirmed that Snow would be departing and said President George W. Bush would announce the news on Friday at 1245 EDT.

I wish him only the best in his future endeavors and in his battle against cancer.

The best press secretary this president has had has announced he is going to step down before the end of the current presidency.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday he’ll leave sometime before the end of the Bush presidency because of financial pressures.

He declined to say when he would depart, but that, “I’m going to stay as long as I can.”

The 52-year-old Snow, the father of three children, earns $168,000 as an assistant to the president but made considerably more as a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio. He was named press secretary on April 26, 2006.

The White House has been shaken by the resignations of some of President Bush’s closest aides. Political strategist Karl Rove announced Monday that he would leave at the end of the month. Longtime Bush adviser Dan Bartlett left earlier this year and Andrew Card left earlier as Bush’s chief of staff.

Bush’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2009.

“I will not be able to make it to the end of this administration, just financially,” Snow said. “This job has been such a pleasant surprise in how much I like it. I love it.”

It seems a person has to be independently wealthy to serve the government.

I hope he stays as long as he can and then lands a good job in the private sector after.

If you have an extra 27 minutes or so to watch a video of Tony Snow talking about his cancer please go to this link.

Or you can just watch a few minutes of it.

White House press secretary Tony Snow is going to undergo surgery on Monday to remove a growth in his lower abdomen, a procedure he said was being done “out of an aggressive sense of caution” because he had colon cancer two years ago.

He said Friday that tests since the growth was discovered have been negative, but that doctors decided to remove it to be sure.

“Please do not leap to conclusions about this because we don’t know what this is,” Snow told reporters. “We know it’s coming out and I know I’ll be back soon.”

Snow had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer.

He said that a recent series of scans revealed the growth. Blood tests and further scans have not indicated a return of his cancer.

Good luck, Tony, and our prayers are with you and your family.