Bush bids farewell to Snow

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By Jon Ward

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, along with more than a thousand other mourners, attended an emotional funeral in Northeast Washington on Thursday for Tony Snow, the former White House spokesman who died Saturday of cancer.

"Tony Snow was a man of uncommon decency and compassion," Mr. Bush said in remarks to a crowd of family, friends, politicians, Bush administration officials and journalists inside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the Catholic University campus.

Mr. Bush, near the beginning of a nearly two-hour funeral that included a Catholic Mass, began to tear up when he said Mr. Snow, who died at 53, was "simply irreplaceable."

The president's voice also wavered when he looked at Mr. Snow's three young children, ages 11 to 16, and said, "He talked about you all the time."

"I used to call Tony on the weekends to get his advice, and invariably I found him with you on the soccer field or at a swim meet or helping you with your homework," Mr. Bush told the children, Kendall, Robbie and Kristi. "He loved you a lot. Today I hope you know we loved him a lot, too."

"I know it's hard to make sense of today," Mr. Bush said. "It is impossible to fully comprehend why such a good and vital man was taken from us so soon. But these are the great mysteries of life, and Tony knew as well as anyone that they're not ours to unveil."

Mr. Snow's widow, Jill, sat with her children, at times dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

Mr. Snow's replacement at the White House, Dana Perino, was overwhelmed by grief at the end of the service, leaving the church in tears.

Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, also attended, as did former top Bush administration officials Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett, Andy Card and Mr. Snow's predecessor, Scott McClellan, who is on the outs with his former colleagues after writing a book critical of the president.

Mr. Snow was White House press secretary from May 2006 to September 2007.