No, I don't mourn the passing of Tony Snow's politics, nor can I muster much sympathy for him in the context of his professional life.
I never met the man, and probably wouldn't have had much to say to him if I had.
But he touched the life of a dear friend of mine in a very deep way, and that - that I am mourning tonight.
I've known the friend in question since we were both in middle school. We've always shared a passionate interest in the media, and a passionate disagreement about politics. As I went left, he moved ever further to the right. I was even able to overlook, for a time, my friend's Fox News fetish, during which he put up a Fox News fan page, got to know some of the anchors there, and even visited the place several times.
In time, my friend had a falling out with the Fox News PR department (and, really, who doesn't?), and he's now no more likely to watch them than I am. Most of the Fox anchors he got to know fell out of contact with him.
Tony Snow did not, and I'll forever be grateful for that.
You see, my friend was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease around the same time Tony Snow was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. If you've dealt with Crohn's, or ulcerative colitis, I don't need to tell you how nasty it can be. If you haven't, well, count your blessings.
Even during his busiest times at the White House, Snow took a few minutes of his minimal personal time to stay in touch with my friend, offering the kind of commiseration that only a fellow sufferer can.
And then things took a turn for the worse. Around the same time Snow's cancer was diagnosed, my friend - who's still in his late 30s, mind you - was also diagnosed with intestinal cancer. You want nasty? That's nasty - and I'm not even sharing the really ugly details, because that's really nobody's business, and it's just plain depressing in any event.
For the last few months, my friend has been hospitalized, and he doesn't want to talk much about his own prognosis. But through it all, he's been cheered by frequent phone calls and e-mails from his friend Tony in Washington. For the last few weeks, they compared notes on a regular basis as they both went in and out of the hospital and dealt with surgeries and chemo and nausea and all the misery that is cancer. Now my friend has lost that vital bit of support, knowing that someone who really doesn't have to give a damn about him cares anyway.
So go ahead and slam Tony Snow all you want for his role in spreading Bush administration propaganda. I'll be right there with you. But I'll also be taking a moment to think about my friend, and about the hole in his difficult life that Tony Snow once filled, and isn't there to fill anymore.