Rafael Román Martel

Their current attempt to express grief is an embarrassing appearance by conservative pill-popper Rush Limbaugh, a light-hearted departure from the regular shark bite human interest story, interrupted by a hastily-constructed 2-second Powerpoint project. To borrow a bit of terminology from Fox fixture Bill O’Reilly, Fox are planning a parade of pinheads tonight to compete with the ego trips Keith Olbermann and co. took upon the death of mediocre and generally unpleasant interviewer of famous people Tim Russert. Luckily Olbermann is too busy frolicking on a beach somewhere with his morally-questionable live-in girlfriend to exploit the death for his own purposes, and while the Fox crew are committing sins of etiquette with the matter, their hubris is tightly locked away. [Editor’s note: Olbermann couldn’t resist the publicity opportunity, and sent out a message to the press from his not-so-humble abode claiming that he was “in frequent contact” with Snow despite hating everything he stood for, and was saddened by the loss.]

Due to the time—midsummer Saturday—and nature of the story, Snow’s name will be linked in the long-term to that of Russert’s, which is not particularly an embarrassment so much as a mismatch. For at least the next decade, the month-long martyrdom of the “Meet the Press” host will be the Gold Standard with which all other obituary programming is judged. Will Fox allow the deceased journalist’s friends to make their private mourning ceremony into a live episode of Oprah on their airwaves? Will they allow the pundits to elevate their status in the game by comparing their work to his or telling stories about how they were loosely related to the departed? For now it seems that they will take a more dignified role than their left-wing counterparts, who barely restrained their desire to Photoshop Russert into a Che Guevara T-shirt or erect a statue of him in Rockefeller Center. But this choice to celebrate his life rather than cry over his death—to dress in bright colors, to broadcast images of Snow at his best and brightest, playing music, laughing, and brightening the lives of his colleagues—is as much a reflection upon who Snow was as on what kind of an organization Fox appears to be. And in his relentless optimism and sense of humor, chances are Snow would have preferred his last impression on earth to be a happy one.

Considering the company that he kept and the occupations he undertook, Snow was a kind, quiet presence on the national media scene. As a Fox News analyst, Snow regularly defied the network’s policy in practice by adhering to it’s mantra: “Fair and balanced.” He did so much to clean up the slime of a reputation people like Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera left behind daily that, rather than follow their typical modus operandi and fire him for being objective, the network promoted him. Once in a while they would let him stroll out of his Sunday graveyard shift to man the most valuable vessel in the Fox fleet, The O’Reilly Factor, the most important job on the network short of Rupert Murdoch’s power position. The Factor was not itself when Snow was in the chair; his demeanor was sweet, his facts straight, his opinions respectful. He treated his guests as equals, and went into discussions with an open mind—a shocking style in cable news.

As press secretary, while shielded from the American public at a higher degree than during his television duties, he performed in stellar fashion. He was cordial and honest, eloquent and affable. But above all, Snow was loyal to his employers without embellishing the truth. He knew his job: to represent the opinions of the White House and make them as palatable as possible to an increasingly frigid media. And it was obvious in his behavior that he knew the media was not to blame for their distrust and negative disposition. They had just emerged from the dark ages of Scott McClellan, Leftist hero and nervous coward. In contrast to McClellan, Snow could not have been more different. To McClellan’s Khrushcev-esque ability to discard self-respect in the face of future potential gain, Snow brought venerable selflessness and indisputable dignity. To McClellan’s lack of confidence and self-esteem he brought the class and poise only someone with a clean conscience could carry. And to his predecessor’s ratty sneakiness he juxtaposed his own brand of vivid honesty. The two personified the brightest and darkest times of the Bush presidency, and it is probably appropriate that Snow would leave on the sunset of the president’s eight-year reign.