Rep. Tom Lantos, diagnosed with cancer, will not seek re-election
Routine medical tests have revealed that I have cancer of the esophagus. In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek re-election.
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. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country. [Press release, Rep. Tom Lantos]
What a sad day. The departure of Tom Lantos will be a loss for the Congress and for this country. Lantos, a Democrat representing California’s 12th District, is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His official bio is here.
If you believe in the capacity of prayer to affect the progress of disease and recovery, Lantos is a deserving object of prayer. He announced today that he has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and will not seek reelection. According to WebMD, esophageal cancer tends to be asymptomatic until it’s advanced and possibly metastatic. Long-term survival rates are less than 30% overall, and almost nil if the cancer has metastasized. We can only hope that Rep. Lantos will get the best care available and that he will beat those terrible odds.
Still, it is a miracle that the boy born to a Jewish family in Budapest as Lantos Tamás Péter in Budapest is still among us. Lantos didn’t just survive the Holocaust, he fought it. As a teenager, Lantos served in the anti-Nazi resistance and even survived capture in 1944 and a term in an axis detention camp. Somehow, he escaped and found his way to one of Raoul Wallenberg’s safehouses, survived the war, and came to America on a scholarship in 1947. He was first elected to Congress in 1980. He became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee just one year ago, succeeding the late Henry Hyde, with whom he shared an obvious, visible collegiality that crossed party lines.
Readers of this site might possibly have sensed that my own views are (ahem) moderately right of center, and they are certainly not in accord with Lantos’s on plenty of issues. Events have refuted this statement to General Petraeus last September:
This is not a knock on you, General Petraeus, or on you, Ambassador Crocker, but the fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand.
With all due respect to you, I must say, I don’t buy it. [WaPo]
This, I believe mischaracterized what Petraeus said. But if this was a prediction of failure — I think it was — I doubt anyone, myself included, is as happy as Tom Lantos that as of today, at least, he seems to have been wrong. Lantos was also a strong supporter of the Bush Administration’s shift in its North Korea policy, from a successful policy of pressured diplomacy to one of negotiation unsupported by either pressure or principle. Events are proving — again — the fruitlessness of such a policy when dealing with Kim Jong Il. Yet Lantos is neither unrealistic about North Korea’s tendency toward mendacity nor ignorant of the meaning of its atrocities toward its own people. His support, at least according to the rumors I’ve heard, was critical in the unanimous passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004 (one can only hope that while Lantos serves out the remainder of his term, he will pressure the State Department to fully fund and implement it).
Lantos’s departure will cost Congress a deep and knowledgeable thinker on Korea policy. I’ve attended enough International Relations/Foreign Affairs hearings to see which committee members generally attend, which members don’t, which ones are vocal, and which ones are wallflowers. Those who are vocal occasionally betray their ignorance of the situation. Disagree with Lantos if you will, but you can’t question his knowledge, diligence, or gravitas, and I’ve never attended a hearing at which he wasn’t present, prepared, and insightful.
The senior Democrats on the Committee are Howard Berman of California and Gary Ackerman of New York. Berman never made much of an impression on me either way; here is a link to a recent speech that gives an idea of how he thinks, and here’s what he said back in 1997 when Agreed Framework 1.0 first ran into trouble. At least he wouldn’t be China’s pet, and he was a co-sponsor of the North Korean Human Rights Act. Ackerman is a sardonic, jowly man with a sharp wit, who occasionally treads heavily and swings blunt objects.
[Update: Ackerman is also a member of the Board for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which I admit came as a surprise to me.]
Of course, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t always give chairmanships according to seniority, as we saw in her bungled attempt to give Intelligence to Alcee Hastings. Not that Nancy Pelosi cares what I think, but two Democratic members who have consistently shown a good grasp of the issues are the very funny Brad Sherman of California and the thoughtful Diane Watson, also of California. Either would be an effective public advocate for the Democrats on Foreign Policy. Sherman can make a room tough to work, but he’s gifted with the ability to encapsulate complex issues within language that both simplifies and entertains. One name we should not rule out is Lynn Woolsey, a not very impressive (to me) and very liberal Democrat.
Without Tom Lantos, the Foreign Affairs Committee will be more divided, more partisan, probably not as well run, and less knowledgeable. Without the shield of his stature, a more confrontational atmosphere may follow, and confrontation tends to benefit the minority. I suspect we’ll hear much more from Dana Rohrabacher, for one. Yes, politics is about competition, and sometimes in democratic politics, collegiality comes at the expense of competition. But without Tom Lantos, the ideas in the arena will lose much in both quality and gentility. Let’s all hope that whatever the political result, he will overcome the odds and beat this diagnosis. If not, I can only hope that one day I will be able to say that I’ve lived as well.