Does Lantos’s Retirement Signal Change in Consciousness?

Tom Lantos, 79, the Hungarian-born Californian who is the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, has announced his retirement due to illness, his struggle with cancer. Good luck to him. Though I wonder if this is not an epochal event. Lantos, who lost much of his family to the Nazis, stupidly compared Saddam to Hitler, and was a crucial vote in the Democratic support for Bush’s war in Iraq. Does his exit mark the passing of his generation from a central role in Jewish life?