Damn.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress, died early Monday after a six-week fight with cancer, his spokeswoman said.
Spokeswoman Lynne Weil said this morning that the 80-year-old Lantos died at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland. He was surrounded by his wife Annette Lantos, daughters Annette and Katrina, and many of his 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
His wife said in a statement that her husband’s life was “defined by courage, optimism, and unwavering dedication to his principles and to his family.”
They sure don’t make enough Representatives like him.
Since becoming chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs a year ago, he has advocated tirelessly for human rights in China, Russia, Burma and Darfur. Late last year, he assailed Yahoo executives for handing over the identity of a Chinese activist, telling them in not quite politically correct fashion: “Morally, you are pygmies.”
Sad news.
A giant in a nest of Republican pygmies.
I wonder how this honorable man would feel knowing that Britain is forcing their olympic athletes to sign documents that they won’t out china for it’s human rights violations.
Sounds like a guy who stood up for what he believed in. Not too many of those around these days.
My father knew Tom Lantos at the U of W and he took my parents out for lunch when they visited DC in the early 80s althought he drew fire from Liberals on occasion, he struck me as one of the class acts in Congress.
I wonder how this honorable man
<sarcasm>Oh, I thought he was a “dixiecrat”.</sarcasm>
#6 YLB says:
What, feel lonely? Don’t worry, there are lots of dixiecrats on this blog for you to talk shop with.
Tom Santos was a patriot and great American.
there are lots of dixiecrats on this blog for you to talk shop with.
You mean you don’t lump Lantos with the “dixiecrats”? I thought you did that to any politician with a “D” next to his name.
Why would an “honorable man” caucus with “dixiecrats”?
A hero has passed.
They would have Swift-boated him just like the others if Rove and Smirky McFlightsuit thought they could have gotten 5 more votes somewhere.
Lantos: A man of principle. I am so glad he lambasted yahoo for giving up Chinese dissidents – hope microsoft fires their sorry butts after the takeover.
Now they can be called ya-soft.
I recall that Lantos held a hearing leading up to the first Iraq war that included the testimony of a Kuwaiti nurse who claimed to see Iraqi troops remove babies from incubators and throw them on the floor. It was later revealed that the nurse was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and had not been in Kuwait at the time of the alleged incident. I wonder if Lantos knew who the woman really was.
Lantos was also a great supporter of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and the brutality that is entailed in that occupation.
From wikipedia:
991 Persian Gulf War
See also: Nurse Nayirah
Lantos was a strong supporter of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. During the run-up to the war, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, of which Lantos was co-chairman, hosted a young Kuwaiti woman identified only as “Nurse Nayirah”, who told of horrific abuses by Iraqi soldiers, including the killing of Kuwaiti babies by taking them out of their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor of the hospital. These alleged atrocities figured prominently in the rhetoric at the time about Iraqi abuses in Kuwait.
The girl’s account was later challenged by independent human rights monitors.[16] “Nurse Nayirah” later turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States.[16] Asked about his having allowed the girl to give testimony without identifying herself, and without her story having been corroborated, Lantos replied, “The notion that any of the witnesses brought to the caucus through the Kuwaiti Embassy would not be credible did not cross my mind… I have no basis for assuming that her story is not true, but the point goes beyond that. If one hypothesizes that the woman’s story is fictitious from A to Z, that in no way diminishes the avalanche of human rights violations.”[16]
Lantos and John R. MacArthur, the foremost critic of the Nayirah issue, each had op-eds features in The New York Times, in which each accused the other of distortion.[17] MacArthur suggested that Lantos may have materially benefited from his having accommodated Nayirah.[18] Nayirah was later revealed to have connections to a lobbying firm in the employ of a Kuwaiti activist group, and her story has since come to be regarded as baseless propaganda.[18]
more wikipedia:
War in Iraq
By September 2002, Lantos had shown himself to be a supporter of the White House position on the war. On October 4, 2002, Lantos led a narrow majority of Democrats on the House International Relations Committee to a successful vote in support of the President’s path toward war, seeking the approval of the United Nations, but allowing the President to strike out on his own if necessary. The resolution later passed the House and the Senate with a total of 373 members of Congress supporting it. “The train is now on its way,” said Lantos after his — and the President’s — victory.[19] In later hearings on the war, Lantos continued his enthusiastic support. At one point he was confronted by witnesses who questioned the likelihood of enthusiastic Baghdadis welcoming the invading Americans; Lantos called this a kind of racism, to suggest the Iraqis might be so ungrateful.
more wikipedia:
War in Iraq
By September 2002, Lantos had shown himself to be a supporter of the White House position on the war. On October 4, 2002, Lantos led a narrow majority of Democrats on the House International Relations Committee to a successful vote in support of the President’s path toward war, seeking the approval of the United Nations, but allowing the President to strike out on his own if necessary. The resolution later passed the House and the Senate with a total of 373 members of Congress supporting it. “The train is now on its way,” said Lantos after his — and the President’s — victory.[19] In later hearings on the war, Lantos continued his enthusiastic support. At one point he was confronted by witnesses who questioned the likelihood of enthusiastic Baghdadis welcoming the invading Americans; Lantos called this a kind of racism, to suggest the Iraqis might be so ungrateful.
Carl,
Sorry if I was befuddled last night, but I really appreciated this thread.
With all the damn cynicism in politcs, It is good to be able to express this sort of respect.