Lieberman Keeps Committee Chair In Senate Vote

Activists Outraged, Vow To "Re-Defeat Lieberman"

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman will keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee despite hard feelings over his support for GOP nominee John McCain during the presidential campaign.
The Connecticut independent will lose a panel post on the Environment and Public Works panel as punishment for criticizing Obama this fall.
Lieberman's colleagues in the Democratic caucus voted 42-13 Tuesday to approve a resolution condemning statements made by Lieberman during the campaign but allowing him to keep the Homeland Security Committee gavel.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he had been very angry by Lieberman's actions but that "we're looking forward, we're not looking back."
Added Reid: "This was not a time for retribution, it was a time for moving forward on the problems of this country."
Lieberman's grasp on his chairmanship had gotten stronger since President-elect Barack Obama signaled to Democratic leaders that he's not interested in punishing Lieberman for boosting McCain and criticizing Obama during the long campaign.

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Dean: Keeping Lieberman As Chairman Is Shrewd Move

DNC Chair Howard Dean welcomed the decision to keep Senator Joseph Lieberman as head of the Homeland Security Committee and, consequently, in the Democratic Caucus, saying the move was pragmatic, magnanimous and politically shrewd.
Speaking to the Huffington Post just moments after it was announced that Democrats in the Senate had voted to keep Lieberman as committee chair, Dean said the party had done the right thing by not giving into urges for retribution.
"You know, the desire of revenge is great, of course. But the truth is public policy doesn't run on revenge very well," he said. "And when you see the trouble this country has gotten into in terms of foreign policy, where Bush basically ran a foreign policy based on petulance because he was mad at, for example, Mexico, for abstaining on the Security Council when the Iraq War came up, if you have to actually run the country, it is best not to do it based on feeling of anger towards your enemies."
The Democratic Party chair, who will be leaving his post this January, went on to applaud Barack Obama for putting hurt feelings aside and welcoming the Connecticut Independent back into the party fray. He also predicted that the caucus would benefit from keeping Lieberman, who spent the past year campaigning alongside John McCain, often criticizing Obama and the Democratic Party.