San Mateo Daily Journal, CA, January 03,2008
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?type=lnews&id=85406
If there is one thing Tom Lantos can do, it is fight. He can fight for both
survival and for what is right.
Yesterday’s announcement that Lantos was retiring after 14 terms in Congress
took many by surprise since it all but seemed clear he was actively preparing
for what would be his newest political fight — that of former state senator
Jackie Speier’s interest in taking his seat.
Instead the news was sad. The longtime congressman has cancer of the
esophagus and will be stepping down from the seat at the end of this year.
Cancer of the esophagus can be beaten with a variety of treatments including
chemotherapy and radiation. It is no small task. It is a grueling battle.
But this is just one fight Lantos will surely take on like he has so
throughout his life. A Holocaust survivor, Lantos has fought against abject
conditions and tyrannical forces like no other. It is his nature.
Arising from the depths of horror and despair of the Holocaust shaped him
forever in two different ways. He always seeks to be the voice of human rights
and social justice throughout the world and will take on any force whether it is
the founders of Yahoo! for their participation in the jailing of a Chinese
journalist to those in Darfur who participated in horrendous genocide. He is
specifically responsible for getting honorary U.S. citizenship for Raoul
Wallenberg, the Swedish humanitarian who helped those persecuted during the
Holocaust. It is Wallenberg’s commitment to basic human freedom that has since
shaped Lantos.
He is also a typical cold war politician who believes in a strong national
defense and will also fight against tyranny in any form. It is that stance that
put him at odds with many in the district as it turned more and more liberal
since he first won election in 1980.
It was that election that also proved Lantos as a true fighter. He took on
William Royer, a popular former county supervisor who filled the spot after Leo
J. Ryan was killed. Lantos was an outsider with an accent who is also a
relentless campaigner. He wrested the seat from a Republican the same year
Ronald Reagan won 44 states to take the White House. A prodigious fundraiser,
Lantos beat Royer back in the rematch two years later and always had at least
$500,000 in his campaign war chest. It was that war chest, his ability in
Congress and tenacious willingness to take on adversity that provided Lantos
with only token opposition throughout the years.
Lantos has proven to be a man of the world who brought Libya’s Muammar
al-Gaddafi back into the global community, protected the rights of the
persecuted Falun Gong and people in East Timor, Burma, Darfur and even here in
the United States. His work is in the world, and for those without a
comprehension of that scope or who are myopic of that importance, it may have
seemed as if he has forgotten the district. But make no mistake, he pays
attention to key constituent groups and often brought much-needed money to the
district for transportation improvements, environmental protection and labor.
While fighting for those funds is a speck of a battle compared to the ones
Lantos has fought in his life, they are indicative of his temperament, tenacity
and fortitude.
Fighting cancer is often called the battle of a lifetime, but Lantos has
fought many. And make no mistake, if anyone can beat it — it is him.