Tony Blankley

Biography

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.