Snow's first TELEVISED briefing goes better...

Compared to last Friday's "mess" of a briefing, today's press briefing by new White House spokesman Tony Snow - his first televised briefing - was, by most accounts, much better.

A dapper dressed Snow - a Greater Cincinnati native and Princeton grad - was more polished, more up to speed and better able to dodge questions. He also choked up a bit, sharing what he called his "Ed Muskie" moment with reporters.

Snow's "moment" came when Rebecca Cooper of WJLA, ABC-TV’s Washington affiliate, asked him why he was wearing a yellow "Livestrong" bracelet.

"Well, I had cancer last year," Snow replied with a steady voice.

Then, standing with both hands on the wooden podium in front of the blue curtain and White House plaque, the veteran newsman lowered his head and paused. When he looked out at the standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 reporters and two-dozen TV cameras and photographers, his eyes were red.

"It’s going to sound stupid and I’ll be personal here, but … just having gone through this last year … was the best thing that ever happened to me," he said, explaining that he lost his mother to colon cancer, the same type he had, when he was 17.

"What has happened in the field of cancer since then is a miracle," said the 51-year-old father of three. "The technologies that were available to me, that have me standing behind this podium today with a doctor who said, ‘You don’t have to worry about getting cancer, just heartburn talking to these people,’ that’s a wonderful thing."

Cooper said after the briefing, "I know I am supposed to be objective, but I was moved by it."

Watch the 37-minute long briefing on C-SPAN tonight at 9:40 p.m.

Or, read the transcript and watch the briefing online here.

Also, be sure to check out tomorrow's Enquirer for a full story about Snow's briefing.