Tony Snow tribute: on “losing the fight” against cancer
Susan Estrich has written a lovely tribute to Tony Snow.
Yes, Susan Estrich, she of the grating voice (with an abrasive timbre almost identical to that of Carol Channing) and the liberal viewpoint. But that didn’t stop her from liking and admiring Snow, with whom she was friends. Apparently, if you knew him, it was hard not to be his friend.
I especially like the following observation of hers. Although it has little to do with Snow himself, it makes a point about the phrase “his/her fight against cancer” that resonates with my own observations:
The opening line of the news story this morning was that Tony “lost his fight with cancer.” But that’s all wrong. If cancer were a fair fight, Tony would have won. Losing implies that you could have won, might have won, had you done something more or different, had you been stronger or better. That’s not how it works. Cancer is. Jerks sometimes survive it. Decent and honorable people sometimes are felled by it. It’s not a fight; it’s a plague.
Empirical evidence that attitudes affect survival when a person is diagnosed with cancer was originally given a wide press and great acceptance, but subsequent research has failed to validate the earlier findings (see also this and this).
I’ve seen people who seem to blame cancer patients for recurrences, assuming falsely that if they’d only had the correct mindset they would have “beaten” the thing. That’s a pernicious mentality (Sloan-Kettering psychiatrist Jimmie Holland has coined the apt phrase “the tyranny of positive thinking” to describe it) that can only hurt people rather than help them, and it has the added drawback of being false. It is sometimes pushed by well-meaning people, but also by hucksters wanting to sell you something.
Holland has a few more choice words on the subject:
The idea that we can control illness and death with our minds appeals to our deepest yearnings, but it just isn’t so.
Yes, of course, attitude matters if it’s so poor that a person isn’t even able to cooperate in his/her own treatment, and just gives up entirely. More often, it matters in that it affects quality of life, and Tony Snow apparently won that particular battle against cancer, hands down. But not the other battle, the one for quantity.
Once, long ago, I was at a funeral for a friend’s child who had died in a swimming accident at 18. In the course of the homily the priest asked, “How long is a life?”
Something to always remember.
Susan Estrich is a human being first and a political operative second.
Too bad there aren’t more like her on the other side. Some very vile things are being said aboiut Tony Snow on the left wing blogs. They are the so vicious and unfeeling you wonder how they can look in the mirror.
Estrich’s tribute to her friend caught my eye, too, for the same reasons you mentioned.
A women with a voice made for print media, she penned a touching essay about Tony Snow, capturing their relationship, and his ability to graciously transcend mere political differences.
I’ve never enjoyed — or respected — Estrich more.
neo-
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts re: the death of Tony Snow. When I first heard the news early this morning, I was deeply saddened for I had grown to really admire and respect this man — and to care from afar — over a number of years. Though you don’t often post on Sundays, I immediately navigated to your site, as I had a feeling you shared a regard for Mr. Snow. It was too early, then, but I was so glad to find your article when I returned to look again.
I watched Mr. Snow for years, and when he was unable to continue his own show on Fox, he still appeared regularly as guest on other shows. Talk about positive attitude! But his wasn’t an affect pushed on him as part of his treatment (I also have doubts about the actual efficacy of positive attitude, but I agree completely that it’s greatest contribution undeniably is to quality of life.) “Positive,” however, seemed to be part of his essence. Even as it became apparent visibly that he was failing in health, he continued to radiated “great guy” with the warmest heart, not to mention a quick and agile. He was an exceptional man, and I think he will be missed more than a little. I will always see him in my mind with that affable grin, speaking always in upbeat terms, who just always seemed happy to be alive — long before he was faced with the reality that it would not be much longer.
Susan Estrich’s words are beautiful, and they really make a reader stop and think– “hey, that’s really an interesting way of thinking about how we think of cancer, and the terms we have come to use: winning the battle, beating it; fighting the disease, losing the fight, etc. She is extremely bright,and I very much admire her for many reasons — but that’s for another time.
Tony Snow was most remarkable in that he carried forward with life, taking on new challenges even as he fought the disease. He gave it his all, and no one can do more than that. Whatever he knew privately about his health, he acted and lived looking forward. I sure hope his kids will someday read all these tributes to him and recognize that their father gave them — and many others — a great gift in his example.
I corresponded by e-mail with Tony Snow off and on after he filled in for Rush in 1998 during “Bo and Snow’s Excellent Adventure”–even while he was WH Spokesman.
We corresponded about music–he was a metalhead, and so am I.
He always returned my e-mails and always had something funny and interesting to say about Rock music, especially heavy metal.
Tony Snow was a metalhead and I will miss him….
I’m about as far right as you can get on most issues but I always did like Susan Estrich. She’s got a sense of humor and doesn’t take herself too seriously. That she has kind words to say about Tony Snow doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Theres a bumper sticker i saw that says “God make me the man my dog thinks i am”. Tony Snow actually was that man.
Something tells me if i’d ever met him, I’d be asking God to make me the man Tony Snow thought i was.
Theres a bumper sticker i saw that says “God make me the man my dog thinks i am”. Tony Snow actually was that man.
So…your dog thinks you’re Tony Snow?
I’ll be here all week. Please tip your blogstress!
I appreciate Ms. Estrich’s comments, especially having watched my brother-in-law die of colon cancer, with very little control over the outcome. It’s true that the idea you should be able to tough cancer out if you just put your mind to it is B.S., and it leads to a similar fallacy: that Western medicine works to “disempower” cancer patients. Read the first of these letters for an expression of this view, then ask yourself whether someone desperate enough to consider “miracle healing” fits the common definition of “empowered.”