Gawker: valleywag, tom lantos

Tom Lantos, a longtime Congressman for the...

Owen Thomas — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:30:15 EST

Tom Lantos, a longtime Congressman for the Valley, has died. He had suffered from esophageal cancer. Unlikely to shed a tear: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who was called a "moral pygmy" by Lantos after Yahoo outed a Chinese dissident to the authorities. [Huffington Post]

Veteran Valley congressman has cancer

Paul Boutin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:31:27 EST

Tom Lantos, who has represented northern San Mateo county and southwest San Francisco in the House of Representatives since 1981 as the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, has esophageal cancer and will step down after completing his 14th term this year. The Examiner has a tidy recap of Lantos's career. As a young man, he twice escaped from Nazi camps. In 2006, the then-77-year-old Congressman was arrested along with other genocide protestors in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington. Wonkette says local politico Jackie Speier is likely to replace him.

Happy birthday, moral pygmy!

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:45:42 EST

Bad enough that Michael Callahan, Yahoo's top lawyer, and Jerry Yang, the company's CEO and cofounder were raked over the coals today by a House committee for the company's role in the imprisonment of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. But Yang suffered the additional indignity of getting the Congressional tongue-lashing on his 39th birthday. Happy birthday, Jerry! Turning 40's going to look easy by comparison.

Yang had to withstand more than an hour of condemnation from members of Congress, chiefly Tom Lantos of California who led the session, before even having a chance to speak. Yang was then forced to bow to Shi Tao's mother who was in the front row and in Lantos's words "beg forgiveness." Committee members unleashed their rhetoric, calling Yahoo's actions "spineless." Congressman Lantos went so far as to personally indict the two executives:

Morally you are pygmies... An appallingly disappointing performance. I think we cannot begin to tell you how disappointing Mr. Yang's and your performance was.

But I bet Yang got his wish — for this whole ordeal to be over.

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)