Indo-Americans Heroes and Movie Stars

I met some amazing people last week at a conference. A movie star, a TV star, several raising political stars and a man who had a critical role in bringing justice back to the Department of Justice.

I have my priorities in order, so I passed up the chance to meet Kal Penn, (whose most famous movie role to date was Kumar in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle") and Raj Peter Bhakta (who was on The Apprentice) to meet and talk to Preet Bharara, Why?

Because Preet Bharara is Chief Counsel to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.

As far as I'm concerned Preet deserved to be the one surrounded by all the fan boys and girls that wanted to meet Kal and Raj. For every person who wanted their photo taken with Kal Penn there should have been three people who went up to Preet to say, "Thank you for helping clean up the Department of Justice. Thank you for making sure that Senator Chuck Schumer had solid questions when investigating the US Attorney firing. Thank you for all your hard work that led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales." (link)

Since Preet wasn't swamped by fans I thanked him for us. I shook his hand and let him know that he is a hero (American hero? Indo-American hero? He's both) and that I was truly honored to meet him. I told him how much I appreciated his work and look forward to his future efforts. We are lucky to have him cranking away on these issues because he is smart and very effective.

(Long time readers of this blog know that I strive to be effective. For those of you who are new visitors, here is one of the stories about my battle against violent rhetoric on the radio that has been directed toward Democrats, journalists, liberals and Muslims.)

Preet said that the focus will be shifting to hearings for a new AG, but I asked him to not let up just because the focus is off Gonzales. He smiled knowingly. Before I said goodbye I specifically said how much I want to make sure the AG's secret memos about torture aren't overlooked. I feel confident with Preet backing up Schumer that this part of the story won't go down the memory hole.

Where did I meet all these amazing people? On Saturday I attended the inaugural Indo- American Council conference at the India Community Center's Malavalli Hall in Milpitas. (Milpitas, "the Gateway to Alviso") I think I was the only blogger there and it was exciting to watch this community get geared up to become more politically active.

I'll write more about it later but I really hope that the conference organizers get up the video of the panel session that Preet, Kal and Raj were on. Not only was it insightful and inspiring, it was funny too!