Wed, Nov 19, 2008 (2:09 a.m.)

President-elect Barack Obama and his former Senate Democratic colleagues displayed unity this week in separate actions that could prove fruitful in Washington going forward.

Obama and former Republican presidential rival John McCain took a step toward patching up their differences in a 40-minute meeting Monday at Obama’s transition headquarters, in Chicago. It would have been difficult in prior elections to get the major presidential candidates to meet so soon after one had defeated the other.

But Obama ran on a unity platform and McCain has been gracious in defeat. McCain, who remains an Arizona senator, vowed to help the Obama administration and the two men even issued a joint statement.

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time,” Obama and McCain said.

Senate Democrats echoed that theme Tuesday when they voted 42-13 to allow Sen. Joe Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee even though he was one of McCain’s most ardent supporters and an Obama critic during the presidential campaign. It would have been understandable had the Democrats taken the prized chairmanship away from the Connecticut independent, a former Democrat who was the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000. As it is, Lieberman was stripped of his other chairmanship of an Environment and Public Works subcommittee.

But Obama had said he was not interested in punishing Lieberman. Democratic senators also wisely realized that Lieberman could still help them pass key legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., represented a voice of reason when he told reporters: “This was not a time for retribution; it was a time for moving forward on the problems of this country.”

We’re not fooling ourselves into believing the partisan rancor, which has enveloped Washington for more than a decade, is going to end overnight. But this new spirit of unity is refreshing to see after years of bitter divisiveness that had turned Congress into a do-nothing institution.