Harry Reid Does Right By Joe Lieberman

CNN.com:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he's still trying to keep Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman within the Democratic caucus despite anger over Lieberman's support of Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

While he has opposed Democratic efforts to end the war in Iraq, "Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators," Reid told CNN's "Late Edition."

"Joe Lieberman is not some right-wing nutcase," he said. "Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut."

Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent, broke with the party over the war in Iraq and ran as an independent after losing the party's nomination in 2006. Since then, he has been the 51st vote that kept the Senate in Democratic hands.

Lieberman also was Al Gore's running mate on the 2000 Democratic ticket.

But this year, he was a fixture on the campaign trail with McCain -- and now that Democrats have gained at least six seats in the chamber, Reid is under pressure from many Democrats to punish Lieberman for harsh criticism of Sen. Barack Obama in a speech at the Republican convention.

The Democrat party just won the presidency by a landslide and made gains in both their control of the House and Senate, yet it's angry, bitter, extreme leftist wing wants to expel Joe Lieberman from the Democrat caucus all because Lieberman dared to follow his principles on the war in Iraq by supporting John McCain. Forget that even as an Independent Joe Lieberman votes with Democrats 90% of the time. Forget that Lieberman has long supported "progressive" issues such as abortion and gay rights, liberals still want retribution in the form of casting Joe Lieberman aside. So all the while President-elect Barack Obama screams "change", his own constituents wish to continue poisoning the Democrat party with their bitter partisanship. In the interests of what's best for the party Harry Reid must make sure Joe Lieberman stays where he is.