Lieberman Avoids Retribution

Still chairman: Senate Democrats let Sen. Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.Getty Images

Still chairman: Senate Democrats let Sen. Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.Getty Images

by James D. Besser

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the guy standing just over Sen. John McCain’s shoulder at so many campaign appearances throughout the fall, dodged a bullet this week.
Senate Democrats voted Tuesday to let the Connecticut Independent — who bolted the party after losing a 2006 primary but who continued to caucus with the Democrats — keep a key committee post despite his energetic efforts on behalf of McCain’s failed presidential bid.
While Jewish liberals were in a snit over the former Democrat, one Jewish leader publicly expressed satisfaction with the vote.
“We are pleased that Senator Lieberman — a leader on so many issues the Orthodox Jewish community cares about — has been supported by his colleagues,” wrote Orthodox Union Public Policy Director Nathan Diament in his

blog, “and that those who agitated for intolerance and retribution were turned back by the senators as well as the president-elect.”
At a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus, members voted 42-13 to boot Lieberman from the Environment and Public Works Committee, but they let him keep his post as chair of the more important Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
While not apologizing for supporting McCain, Lieberman told reporters “some of the things that people have said I said about Senator Obama are simply not true. There are other statements that I made that I wish I had made more clearly, and there are some that I made that I wish I had not made at all.”
Why just a wrist slap? Colby College political scientist L. Sandy Maisel said the action points to a pragmatic incoming administration and congressional leadership more interested in advancing an aggressive legislative agenda than in settling scores.
Lieberman still votes with the Democrats “more than he does with the Republicans — and more than some Democrats do,” Maisel said. “It’s better to keep him in the fold, even if you’re not going to change his mind on Iraq.”
Obama reportedly plans an ambitious first-year legislative agenda; every vote closer to the 60-vote Senate super majority that will allow his party to cut off Republican filibusters will make that easier, he said.
“The Democrats won’t need his vote to get to 60 all that often, but when they do they have a better chance of getting it now,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.
The fact that Obama sent a clear signal that he didn’t want Lieberman exiled by his former party also made it easier for Democratic members to vote for him, despite anger in the party’s left wing.
“Obama clearly wants to run a unifying administration, and he’s urging Democrats to put away their knives, at least the ones thrust into one another’s backs,” Sabato said. He added that the Lieberman decision doesn’t really matter much because the Connecticut lawmaker “has obviously lost influence with his party, and he now has a shaky base at home.”

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