Monday, February 11th, 2008...8:55 am
Tom Lantos
Representative Tom Lantos of California has died. Lantos was often called the only Holocaust survivor to serve in congress, although he usually refered to himself as one of the last people in congress that had personally fought fascism. His experiences led him to be a fierce advocate for human rights. In recent years, he had been taking a leadership role in highlighting abuses in places like Sudan, China and Pakistan.
Lantos was born Lantos Tamás Péter in Budapest. When the Germans began their occupation of Hungary in support of local fascists, he joined the resistance movement. Lantos was able to escape Hungary thanks to the assistance of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Unfortunately, Lantos was one of the few members of his family to escape Nazi occupied Hungary. Lantos later sponsored the bill to give Wallenberg honorary American citizenship.
One odd tidbit about Lantos’s life: he was married to a cousin of the Gabor sisters.
1 Comment
February 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
“His experiences led him to be a fierce advocate for human rights.”
And whose human rights were those? Certainly not the Palestinians as he was a strong ally of AIPAC. Certainly not the Iraqis as he was a strong advocate of the US invasion of Iraq.
I guess that Mr. Lantos liked to pick and choose the humans whose rights he advocated for.
Lantos on Iraq (From Wikipedia):
“”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.”"
He was exactly the kind of Democrat the Democrats should be voting out of office. In his case, however, he’s dead so he won’t be running again, I hope.
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