Outside of Room 2113 in the Rayburn House Office Building on Tuesday, a Vietnamese television crew excitedly conducted interviews with just about anybody who would share any thoughts on new U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, who at just about that moment was being sworn in as easily the most unlikely congressman in many a year.
Since the Examiner became the first national publication to highlight Cao’s uphill race for Congress as a Republican from an overwhelmingly Democratic New Orleans district, Cao’s story as a boyhood refugee from the Vietcong has become well known. It should also be noted how Cao symbolizes the real flesh-and-blood lives and dreams of the people on whose behalf the United States military has fought. The United States fights not for conquest, but for liberation of people, even when, as with Vietnam and Iraq, those wars are criticized here at home by those who refuse to acknowledge the justness of the American cause.
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It is fitting that Cao, who fled a nation in ruins, should now represent a city that just three years ago was wrecked by one of the nation’s worst recorded hurricanes. Cao simultaneously is helping achieve redemption for both, while firmly embracing his identity as an American. Apologizing for the cliché while rightly noting its accuracy, Cao’s interim chief of staff Ruth Sherlock told the Examiner Tuesday that “he’s the American dream…. He personifies what America is about: that we still have opportunity, that we are what we make ourselves.” We agree.
