Snow Chokes Back Tears When Asked About Cancer Fight...

As he took the podium of the White House press room for his first televised press briefing Tuesday morning, Tony Snow surveyed the tightly packed crowd, flanked by a dozen television cameras hovering feet from him, and said: "I feel so loved...

...The most memorable moment was intensely personal.

Mr Snow, 50, who was treated for colon cancer last year, the disease that killed his mother when he was 17, was asked why he wore a yellow bracelet.

Choking back tears and pausing to calm himself, he admitted: "It's my Ed Muskie moment," a reference to the Democrat who ran for president in 1972 and was famously caught on camera sobbing.

He roused himself with a joke from his doctor, who told him: "You don't have to worry about getting cancer, just heartburn talking to these people."

Asked for thoughts on his first day, Mr Snow grinned and said: "I love it. This is great."

But the tensions were evident in a slight blush beneath his make-up.

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