Talk:Tom Lantos

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Contents

[edit] Personal info

Tom and Annette Lantos do not have a son. Some jokester added that "fact" months ago, and the volunteer editor(s) assigned by Wikipedia to patrol for vandalism never bothered to delete it. Such errors cast the credibility of this article in doubt. StraightStory (talk) 01:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category question

Is inclusion in Category:Hungarian politicians appropriate? I think not, and am inclined to revert unless someone can make a solid case for it. Yes, he is Hungarian by birth, and, yes, he is a politician, but he is a U.S. politician. He is not involved in the politics of Hungary, nor is he involved in a Hungarian nationalist party. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:16, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I admit that this is questionable, but I think that just as Arnold Schwarzenegger can be called an Austrian politician living and working in California, Tom Lantos can similarly be called a Hungarian politician living and working in the U.S. Of course, the term U.S. politician is equally correct for both people. These people are usually referred to as "Austrian-American" or "Hungarian-American" – why could we not use these separately?

-- Adam78 00:21, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether you could by some stretch of the imagination call him that, but what the category is for. If you look up Category:Hungarian politicians, which is a subcategory of Category:European politicians and Category:Politics of Hungary, are you at all likely to want to see a U.S. politician who happens to be Hungarian-born? I certainly think not. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:39, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't need to use any special imagination for that category. The term "Hungarian politician" is ambiguous, period. – Anyway, the supercategories are convincing. We can create then a more appropriate category, eg. Category:Hungarian-born politicians, just like Category:Foreign-born US political figures exists. This could be within Category:Hungarian people by occupation, but not within Category:Politics of Hungary. Would this be all right for you? --Adam78 09:07, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:55, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cousin

Is there any citation for the claim that he is a distant cousin of Eva Gabor and Zsa Zsa Gabor?

I found something on the net, but its not what you would call a detailed family tree. I think that since the media can be wrong, it demands further research. --Uncle Bungle 2 July 2005 04:25 (UTC)

[edit] PhD

Tom's official Web site and his bio at Vote Smart state that he earned a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley (1953), and not from the University of Washington (1950). I don't know if it's true or not, but I would like to see the source(s) that claim that he earned his PhD in 1950 (aged only 22). Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 13:42, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I can't see why we would doubt his own site on this, and Vote Smart are also genearally quite reliable. Go ahead and change it, cite appropriately when you do. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:43, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mormonism

A recent addition to the article says "His wife, Annette, however is a convert to Mormonism. Both Lantos daughters, their husbands, and 17 grandchildren are devout Mormons." However the citation provided merely says that both daughters married Mormons, and that his oldest grandchild is majoring in Jewish Studies. It does not say that any of these people are Mormons, let along devout. I'm not saying that they are not; I'm just saying that it is in the article, totally uncited, and that the link that was added at the same time as this material could easily be mistaken for being a citation for it. Does anyone have a citation for any of this? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

LDS Legislators, reprinted from [Deseret News]] November 18, 1998 cites for wife Annette being Mormon. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Tom Lantos on SourceWatch.org cites for both daughters and all grandchildren (though they give a smaller number for the latter) being "active in the Mormon church".

No citation for "devout". I will change that to active, and add other citations accordingly. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If you understood mormonism, you would know that active = devout. There is no middle ground with those people.148.177.1.219 22:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, in the other direction, this has become "16 of his 17 grandchildren", again without citation. Can someone please explain what is going on here? Is there some individual who is an exception, or was this vandalism, or what? -- Jmabel | Talk 08:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Almost a press release

This recent anonymous edit is almost a press release. I think it leaves the article slanted heavily in Lantos's favor. I've toned it down a little, but there is probably considerable work to do here. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral voice?

Why is there now so much material in this entry devoted to unproven accusations, including links to articles from political and ethnic interest groups, and unreliable opinion journals? The latest edits don't seem to support Wikipedia's principled dedication to maintaining a neutral voice.

Also: I've read the Huffington Post piece several times, and see nothing that suggests that Lantos wants to bomb Iran, as the new link to it disingenuously suggests. The Lantos piece advocates referral to the UN Security Council for sanctions.

---

Thank you to 66.98.99.154 for taking the time and trouble to make much-needed fixes to this article. Some really nasty type(s) of late had placed a number distortions and lies about my Congressman in the article, and I found myself repeatedly wishing they would go away.

Also, the entries looks much better organized than before.

Good job!

(WikiAdmirer 03:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC))

Thanks, but the article still needs some more work. The author who contributed much of the anti-Lantos apocrypha seems to make a pattern of edits with the general theme that there is an international jewish conspiracy to control politics. We need to take some of the emphasis that he put on Lantos' religious connections and replace it with the sort of policy and fact-driven information that belongs in an encyclopedia. And on an aside, I'm sorry that I misspelled Knesset but 24.13.8.214 needs to take things in perspective. Typos, even if they are obliquely linked to on cnet, are not a crime.

[edit] Major duplication of material

Not to doubt that the Nurse Nayirah story needs to be told, but does it need to be told at length, almost identically, here and at Citizens for a Free Kuwait? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Since there's a link to the Nurse Nariyah Wikipedia page, maybe that's where the details belong. It's hard to see why, in an article where one sentence each is dedicated to Lantos' legislative record on various issues, and one paragraph sums up his entire life, there should be three paragraphs dedicated to this disputed incident.

Also, what's up with the links to those dubious groups below the article? They were added by the same user. Looks like somebody who despises Lantos is abusing the privilege of taking part in this Web site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NetScholar (talk • contribs) 26 Jan 2006

I agree--someone editing this article has it out for the Congressman and insists on inserting material that is neither useful nor presented in an unbiased way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.98.99.154 (talk • contribs) January 30, 2006
I agree was well. The whole "1990-1991 Persian Gulf War" section seems to be irrelevant, but I don't know much on Lantos' history. Perhaps it should be trimmed down and his involvement in the Gulf War should be indicated? Right now it seems completely out of the blue. DrIdiot 21:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy Section

I'm torn on whether or not to delete the controversy section of the article. As it is now, it seems to imply that the Congressman is part of some vast Jewish conspiracy and is in league with Russian mob bosses. Maybe someone who disagrees with some of his positions on issues can dig up some controversial political decisions hes made or controversial speeches. I'd much rather talk about that kind of controversy than the other stuff. 68.33.74.123

Deleted the Controversy section because of the reasons above, but I want to stress that there is plenty in Congressman Lantos' past that could be considered controversial. I simply think that an encyclopedia article isn't the place to display the kind of veiled anti-semitism that the previous comment in the controversy section implied.68.33.74.123

[edit] Tamas Peter Lantos

There was an edit made claiming that his name was originally Tamas. I commented it out since I could not find any information backing up this claim. If anyone else knows it as a fact just uncomment it out.

DrIdiot 20:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

source: [1]

DrIdiot 03:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems likely enough: he was born in Hungary to an assimilated Hungarian Jewish family. I would suggest that if someone really cares, simply write to his office and ask, I'm sure they'd gladly answer. - Jmabel | Talk 04:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

What's up with 'Lantos Tamas Peter'? Is it the common practice for Hungarians to give a family name first? 68.33.74.123 01:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. - Jmabel | Talk 19:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traffic incident

It is unacceptable that the incident in which Lantos injured the boy by running over the youngster's foot with his motor vehicle, without stopping, gets classified as "trivia," while the incident in which Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is accused of assaulting a Capitol Police officer is deemed an "incident." These are both "incidents," and the only reason that a distinction is being made is that Capitol Police decided not to charge Lantos with felony hit-and-run, whereas they did decide to pursue criminal charges against McKinney. By accepting this distinction at face value, Wikipedia risks exposing itself as stenographers for the Capitol Police. And by literally "trivializing" the incident with Lantos's hit-and-run incident with the child by deeming it trivia, and omitting vital additional context from the same report that it cites (eg., the fact that the school principal got right out in front of Lantos's vehicle and attempted to stop him, and the Capitol Police threatened him with arrest) a highly prejudicial impression is created. The failure to include such relevant context makes it impossible for the uninitiated or casual reader to fairly judge the credibility of charges of bias and unprofessional conduct by Capitol Police. Gberliner 22:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

That said, the current version (which I believe is yours) gives over about 20% of the article to this one incident. Consider this from the point of view of a reader rather than someone concerned with scoring political points: a general reader comes here hoping to learn something about a reasonably prominent member of congress and most hears that he once irresponsibly hurt a boy's foot. This seems to me to be utterly disproportionate. - Jmabel | Talk 01:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
While I agree with you that the pattern of disproportionate attention being paid to relatively trivial aspects of a politician's life is problematic, it's not something unique to Wikipedia, and it can't be fixed piecemeal. For example, the reason I added this detail to the article on Lantos is that the detractors of Cynthia McKinney [2] have pursued a campaign out of creating a cause celebre around her brief confrontation with a Capitol Police agent outside the Capitol building. It therefore becomes necessary for her defenders, in order to point out the unfairness of this tactic, to point out the totally different treatment received by one of her colleagues in another incident involving law enforcement. The McKinney article has been locked, but I called for a reference to the Lantos incident to be allowed, since McKinney's defenders have responded to this campaign by pointing out the Lantos incident and the totally different treatment it received. I'd be happy to see a change in American politics that would make this kind of infantile duelling obsolete. But you cannot fairly ask that one side drop it and not the other. Now, as a matter of principle, do either of these things deserve anywhere near the attention they've received, in an encyclopedia article? Probably not. Gberliner 22:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds rather like WP:POINT to me. - Jmabel | Talk 23:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it "sounds" somewhat like that, but the things cited as examples of such an abuse in the definition you pointed to of "don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point" are a lot more extreme than this case.
Also, I don't think that any treatment of this subject is necessarily out-of-place in Wikipedia. I DO think it should be organized differently. For example, while the Lantos and McKinney incidents are not highly important in the larger picture of the careers of those individual politicians, they are potentially important in any inquiry into the Capitol Police, and the role of police in public affairs in the US in general and race relations in particular. Thus, a better approach, as I think about it, would be for both "incidents" to receive a one sentence link to a section of an article covering "controversies" involving the Capitol Police. But I'm not sure how exactly to go about effecting such a reorganization. Gberliner 22:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I would be generally in favor of that. I think the McKinney case looms a little larger, though, because it seems to have been a factor in her failure to be re-elected. - Jmabel | Talk 05:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, if so, then I would support giving McKinney's "incident" two lines in her article, with the second line noting that it played a role as a controversy in her election campaign, with some citation for that fact. That seems reasonable. Once again, though, I don't really know how to proceed on this. Would you like to undertake such a reorganization? Gberliner 08:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: 1991 persian gulf war

Jmabel - Thanks for that rewrite, it's much improved over what was there before. The Nayirah incident is very well known and documented and there's a book about it (see John R. MacArthur). However I think this article's mention is still a bit POV and not that well sourced. Lantos ran a newspaper op-ed piece defending himself at the time:

Kuwaiti Gave Consistent Account of Atrocities TOM LANTOS. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Jan 27, 1992. p. A20 (1 page)

It should probably be cited if you can get access. This article may also be of some use:

CONGRESSMAN SAYS GIRL WAS CREDIBLE KRAUSS,, CLIFFORD. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jan 12, 1992. pg. A.11

It mentions that Lantos confirmed in an interview that he knew who Nayirah was before her congressional appearance, but he said he'd kept it secret on the Kuwaiti ambassador's request out of safety concerns.

The MacArthur op-ed is:

Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?; The Ambassador's daughter and the propaganda blitz. By John R. MacArthur. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Jan 6, 1992. p. A17

There's a bunch of other back-and-forth which should be pretty easy to find.

67.117.130.181 12:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with someone else adding material from these sources, but that is not a priority for me. I also think it mostly belongs in an article on her, not on Lantos: it seems to me that the only additional related material that would be relevant on Lantos would be "what he knew and when he knew it," especially the degree to which he knew this was a Hill and Knowlton fabrication when he allowed it to be used as a causus belli. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Petraeus Hearing

Lantos had some generally concerning comments at the last General Petraeus hearing. I am wondering how/where best to include those comment in the article. Any suggestions? Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 15:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The link to NancyPelosi's youtube video of the hearing was removed so I've used the ForeignAffairs committee transcript as the source instead but the video is much better, I think. Is there a rule against reliable youtube videos being used as sources? Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 21:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

The text says he considered himself a secular Jew, but the infobox says Religion: Jewish. They can't both be right.80.195.188.190 (talk) 16:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


Yes, they can be both correct. Secular Jew is defined rather well in "Secular_Jewish_culture" [3].--24.3.116.149 (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's clear at all what is meant by 'considering oneself a secular Jew', if it doesn't mean a non-practicing Jew; Secular Jewish culture doesn't give an interpretation of that. Does it mean that Lantos was involved in Jewish culture but might or might not have been involved in Jewish religion? I don't think that is the point that the editor who originally included the phrase in this article was trying to convey. I think this needs to be clarified. Was Lantos a practising Jew?80.195.188.190 (talk) 21:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I checked it out. http://info.jpost.com/C001/Supplements/Shoah/hol_LantosList.html quotes him saying "I'm not a religious person." I've edited the infobox to reflect this.80.195.188.190 (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Not being "religious" and not being Jewish are two different things. It depends on how being "religious" is defined. --Veritas (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Of course he was Jewish; the infobox does not refer to ethnicity or cultural background, but to religion. He said he was not religious, therefore it is incorrect to say his religion was Jewish.80.195.188.190 (talk) 21:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
One can be of the Jewish faith without being a strictly religious person. Many Catholics, for instance, still consider themselves to be Catholics - and the Church considers them to be Catholic - even if they are not practicing. There's simply not enough context given in that quote as to what he meant. --Veritas (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
In that case, pending certain confirmation of his religion, it seems to me that the entire reference must be removed. We can't leave it saying he has a religion when he himself says he's not religious.80.195.188.190 (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
That's the thing - there isn't enough evidence to back your claim that he isn't Jewish. Until that evidence is found one cannot say that he wasn't when there is no proof to the contrary. You have no evidence that he did believe in the central tenants of Judaism or that he didn't consider himself a member of the Jewish faith only that he - at one point in time - did not consider himself to be a religious person. --Veritas (talk) 22:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia. We can't say someone adhered to a particular religion unless we have reliable evidence that he did. The evidence we have suggests he did not. We have no proof that he wasn't Buddhist, either, except that one quotation. That is why I suggested removing the entry, rather than saying one thing or the other. 80.195.188.190 (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it's perfectly ok to put Jewish as his religion. I'm a secular, non practicing jew and I wouldn;t have any problem with Jewish being put as my religion.--Dr who1975 (talk) 20:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Judaism has been on this page for over a year... if the editors who were scrutinizing it when he was alive didn't have a problem with it then I don't see why his death should change anything.--Dr who1975 (talk) 20:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

OK.. I've tried to implement a compromise. I put Jewish (non practicing) in there. From my reading it sounds like Judaism was the closes thing Lantos had to a religion. While not religous, he identified himself as a Jew. It would be inapropriate to leave it blank. I also made the change to Barney Frank because he is similarly a non practicing Jew.--Dr who1975 (talk) 20:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

In response to Dr who1975's three comments above: Firstly, the article is about Tom Lantos, not about you. Secondly, articles need to be factual, not to reflect what their subjects "wouldn't have any problem with". Thirdly, a long-standing error does not become true simply because nobody corrected it before. When Wikipedia policy changes to say that anything unchallenged for a year needs no citation, let me know. It may be that Lantos regarded himself as a 'non-practicing Jew' but if you want to keep this in the article you need to provide a reference in support. An unsupported statement is not a meaningful compromise in terms of what can be included in an encyclopedia; it's just as inappropriate as another unsupported statement. Unless a reference can be given confirming that Lantos adhered to a religion, whether practising or not, it's inappropriate to have anything given as his religion, and the entry needs to be removed.JulieRudiani (talk) 12:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I know the article isn't about me... it's called an analogy.
  • You are the one who first talked about discussing things before changingf them. Have you flip flopped on this position?
  • You want a citation on him being a non practicing Jew but you never had an issue with the line "He considers himself a secular Jew". I will see what I can find.--Dr who1975 (talk) 14:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
is there any reason to not list him as secular jew under religion? or note him as nonreligious? or nonpracticing? Tingrin87 (talk) 08:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotected

I have unprotected the article after blocking two IP accounts that had been repeatedly reverting and violating WP:NPOV. I hope that productive editing will resume, but if it does not, the article can be re-protected or semi-protected. Jehochman Talk 20:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interest in Human Rights

I added his defense of Chinese political prisoners. Here are some references as of 3/6/2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/technology/07yahoo.html Yahoo Criticized in Case of Jailed Dissident WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (AP) published in the NY Times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.82.198 (talk) 07:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)