WASHINGTON: Senate Democrats backed away from a major rebuke of Sen. Joe Lieberman yesterday, keeping their colleague as the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress and stripping him only of a lesser subcommittee.
According to several reports, exoneration was partly due to the fact that President-elect Barack Obama requested forgiveness, so the penalty is likely to be less severe than some wanted.
There were fears that Lieberman, a former Democrat turned independent, might become Republican if he lost the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.
Democratic aides said Obama urged Democrats to do what it takes to keep Lieberman, who represents Connecticut, in their Senate conference where he routinely votes with them.
The decision regarding the fate of renegade Lieberman was laden with symbolism for the party as it prepares to gain control of power in Washington. Lieberman, as anyone who paid even passing attention to the US presidential race knows, was an enthusiastic supporter of Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain.
Thus he angered many Democrats when he spoke at the Republican National Convention in support of the Republican ticket in September. Party insiders suggested he kept his seat in part because the Senate is a legislative body that was built on and relies heavily upon personal loyalties; the Senate’s “Old Boy Network” is one of the world’s most exclusive clubs.
Lieberman, the Democratic party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, left the party because he supported President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
Reports leaked last week that Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid had informed Lieberman that he likely would lose his chairmanship of the committee and instead assume a leadership post on a less prominent panel. Lieberman told Reid that offer was “not acceptable,” according to sources.
Arab American organizations, meanwhile, had lobbied against Lieberman’s reappointment as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. “During Sen. Lieberman’s tenure as chairman, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs issued a misleading and controversial report entitled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat on May 8, 2008, said Dr. Jim Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.
“While this committee report appropriately observed the value of outreach and engagement with Arab Americans and American Muslims as vital to securing the freedom and safety of our nation, the overall findings of the report make the dangerous and unsubstantiated claim that the threat posed by violent extremists now comes ‘increasingly from within’ the United States and falsely characterizes Arabs and Muslims in America as ‘susceptible to radicalization.’”
Dr. Zogby noted his addition concern over reports that Lieberman will be appearing in the documentary: The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America, the sequel to the highly controversial film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West that was distributed via mass mailing to 28 million households during the recent election.
