Tony Blankley

Anthony David Blankley (January 21, 1948 – January 7, 2012) was an American political analyst who gained fame as the press secretary for Newt Gingrich, the first Republican Speaker of the House in f... Anthony David Blankley (January 21, 1948 – January 7, 2012) was an American political analyst who gained fame as the press secretary for Newt Gingrich, the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty years, and as a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group. He later became an Executive Vice President with Edelman public relations in Washington, D.C. He was a Visiting Senior Fellow in National-Security Communications at the Heritage Foundation, a weekly contributor to the nationally syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Center, the author of The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? and American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century. He served as the editorial page editor for The Washington Times from 2002–2009. Blankley was briefly a child actor appearing, most notably, as Rod Steiger's son in The Harder They Fall (1956). The movie was, as Blankley liked to joke, both his and his co-star Humphrey Bogart's last movie. He graduated from UCLA and Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), earning a J.D. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1972.