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November 18, 2008 -- Updated 0021 GMT (0821 HKT)
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman managed to keep his Senate committee chairmanship in part because President-elect Barack Obama didn't want to punish him for supporting Sen. John McCain, Lieberman said Tuesday.


Sen. Joe Lieberman speaks Tuesday after Democrats allowed him to keep his committee chairmanship.

The Senate Democratic caucus, following a lengthy and often heated debate, voted 42-13 Tuesday to let Lieberman continue chairing the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The caucus did, however, strip Lieberman of his spot on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

A Democrat in the Senate for 18 years before going independent, Lieberman criticized Obama, the Democratic nominee, during the race for the White House.

"I know that my colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus were moved not only that Sen. [Harry] Reid said about my longtime record, but by the appeal from President-elect Obama himself that the nation unite now to confront our very serious problems," Lieberman said in the Capitol as those colleagues nodded in agreement behind him. Watch Lieberman express regrets over past statements �

Democrats were angered by Lieberman's speech to the Republican National Convention, where he praised his longtime friend McCain and criticized Obama for not reaching across the aisle to work with Republicans during his time in the Senate.

Reid, the Senate majority leader, said Lieberman's criticism of the Democratic nominee had angered him.

"I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was," he said Tuesday. "But I also believe that if you look at the problems we face as a nation, is this a time we walk out of here saying, 'Boy did we get even'?"

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Obama urged Reid privately to let bygones be bygones, sources said.

Reid dismissed vehement criticism of the decision from elements of the party's more liberal base, which insisted Lieberman be punished.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Senate's other independent who regularly caucuses with the Democrats, told CNN's Dana Bash he was one of the 13 who voted against Lieberman because while millions of people worked hard for Obama, Lieberman actively worked for four more years of President Bush's policies.

But Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, one of four Democrats who proposed the motion to allow Lieberman to keep his chairmanship, said the caucus decided that it could forgive if Obama could.

LIEBERMAN