Rep. Tom Lantos: 1928-2008

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

CMR is saddened to learn that Bay Area Rep. Tom Lantos, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, passed away today. He was 80 years old. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. 

AP:

"Flags were lowered to half-staff at the White House and U.S. Capitol.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "Tom Lantos was a true American hero. He was the embodiment of what it meant to have one's freedom denied and then to find it and to insist that America stand for spreading freedom and prosperity to others."

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, she said, "He was also a dear, dear friend and I am personally quite devastated by his loss."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that Lantos "used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world."

The timing of Lantos' diagnosis was a particular blow because he had assumed his committee chairmanship just a year earlier, when Democrats retook control of Congress. He said then that in a sense his whole life had been a preparation for the job -- and it was. ..."

Image courtesy AP.