Tony Snow Has Colon Cancer Resurgence

The big story today is that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's colon cancer has returned (source 2 3 4). Snow battled colon cancer two years ago successfully, but now a new crop of the same cancer has shown up in his liver. It was removed on Monday, and Snow is reportedly in good spirits, optimistic about his chances for survival.

Today, I urge all liberals, progressives, moderate-lefties and true patriots to stand with Tony Snow and send up your prayers to him and his family, just as we have done with Elizabeth Edwards last week. I feel like anything less would be hypocritical and inhuman, so please, think of him. This disease transcends political boundaries.

That being said, I decided to perform a little test to see how hard-core conservatives would react to a liberal offering good wishes to Tony Snow. I created a login name on freerepublic.com, the Freepers' domain, under Deep Blue Nevada. After acquiring my password (promptly changed), I posted a message of support for Snow on a thread (this one). It went a-little something like this:

Off the bat, I have to say that as a liberal, I may not agree with everything that you guys say most of the time.

However, my thoughts and prayers are now with Tony Snow. I wish all the best for him and his family, just as I have wished all the best for Elizabeth Edwards and his family. To do any less would be inhuman and soulless of me.

This disease reaches across the aisle, as it is a tragedy when anyone is afflicted with it, especially after previous occurrences. Having two family members that have died of cancer helps me identify with, and pray for, Tony and Elizabeth and anyone else suffering from it.

~ Deep Blue

I posted this message around 10:13 AM PDT on 3/27/2007. It told me that the post would be "reviewed," probably because of earlier abuse from other Freepers. Here is a picture of that page:

I then waited to see when it would show up and what the reaction would be. Five minutes went by. Then 10. Now it's been almost 25 minutes and my post hasn't shown up.

Now, it is their site and they can manage it anyway they please. But it will be a sad commentary on how they act if they decide that a liberal reaching across the aisle is not worthy of server time. I was not inflammatory (well, the first sentence could be), and I was not mean-spirited...I just wanted to show my support for Snow's battle. I haven't even called him by his nickname once in this post.

I will periodically check back to see if I've been approved, rejected, rebuked, and/or kicked off the site. I hope they lighten up over there.

~ Deep Blue

Update (10:58 AM PDT): My post still hasn't shown up, so I fired off an inquiry to the webmaster asking him if he could check on the status of my post to see where it went. I'll update ASAP.

Update (11:08 AM PDT): My comment was posted at 10:55 AM PDT on this page. I am post #480 on the page, shown here:

And now I play the waiting game...

Update (12:33 PM PDT): I received my first response from a Freeper who said that they went to Edwards' site and left them a message of prayer for them. I'm glad that the first response to my post was a positive one. Every word I said in that post was true and sincere, and I'm glad that I've at least got some people thinking about it. That's all I really wanted to do: show people that this disease knows no ideology, and that we should pray for recoveries for everybody. In some regard, it changes my admittedly preconceived notions about all Freepers.

Update (1:22 PM PDT): I just realized I made a typo when I posted my original message. I said "...Elizabeth Edwards and his family..." as opposed to "her family." My mistake. I will not correct it on this site because I cannot correct it on FreeRepublic. Stupid copy/paste and not proofreading...


Update (3:59 PM PDT): I got another positive response from a Freeper, saying that it took me a lot of courage coming in here. It really did...I had no clue what the response would be, just my aforementioned preconceived notions. I wish that more liberals would wish Tony Snow the best, in spite of his political leanings.

All my responses can be viewed here.