I just recieved the word via National Journal that Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA-12) passed away this morning at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. Here is the alert I recieved through email, and a small, probably insufficient tribute below:
NEWS ALERT: LANTOS DIESHouse Foreign Affairs Chairman Lantos has died, his office announced today. Lantos, 80, died at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. He had earlier announced his decision not to seek re-election this year after revealing he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He said at that time he planned to finish out his term. More details will be available in this afternoon's CongressDailyPM.
Congressman Lantos was the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Despite his Democratic affiliations he was an early supporter of the Iraq war, for which he was subject to much disdain among fellow Democrats. However, his zeal was not for war, but for peace and human rights. You see, Tom Lantos was a survivor of the Holocaust, the only one of his rare, brave kind to serve in Congress. He fought in the Hungarian resistance during the Nazi occupation of his homeland before being rescued by Raoul Wallenberg. So, Tom Lantos did not take invading another country lightly. In fact, when it became clear how badly we had botched the job, he zealously pursued oversight hearings.
Tom Lantos was no hypocrit. He was a strong advocate for intervention in Darfur, to the point where he was arrested in 2006 for protesting outside the Sudanese embassy. He also supported keeping the peace between Syria and Lebanon to protect civillians on both sides of that border.
Upon announcing his retirement on January 2 of this year, he was quoted as saying:
"It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress," he said. "I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."
It is us who should express our gratitude for men like Tom Lantos, who fought against evil itself in his homeland, then spent so many years fighting in a very different way, but with the same zeal and dedication to his cause, not only for the people of California or the United States, but the human rights and well being of people around the world.
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