'Meet the Press' transcript for Dec. 21, 2008

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. BURNETT:  ...who had a fiduciary responsibility to do it.  But there’s no question we need a real regulator.

MR. GREGORY:  And here John McCain was lampooned a bit during the—for the campaign for saying that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox should be fired.

MS. MITCHELL:  Well, and, in fact, you have people who invest in these fund of funds...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...and these are supposed to be the people who do all the due diligence beyond the regulators, and they were looking to put all of this money in a nondiversified way into a fund which had a teeny two-person or three-person accounting and....

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...and no computerized analysis?

MS. BURNETT:  And collect a fee for doing it.

MS. MITCHELL:  And collect the fee.

MS. BURNETT:  Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL:  Exactly.  So the SEC has a lot of answering to do.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. MITCHELL:  And, and, in fact, John McCain was absolutely right in looking at that.  But the, the—it’s not just this SEC, it’s previous SEC chairmen. It’s not just Christopher Cox, it go—this goes all the way back...

MR. GREGORY:  Right, right.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...to 1999.

MR. GREGORY:  I, I’ve got just a couple minutes left.  I want to take a look at the Obama Cabinet now that it is complete.  And we have a picture of the Cabinet that we can show, from Eric Holder to Tom Vilsack and on and on.  The Cabinet now set with historic levels of diversity and ideological distinction. This is how The Washington Post reported on it, for the Obama Cabinet, “A Team of Moderates.”

Carol, what have we learned about Barack Obama in the selection of his Cabinet?

MS. MARIN:  That he—the word still is pragmatic.  That he believes in consensus.  It is this no drama.  It’s a team of people who are going to move methodically, without ideological components.  In—I think ultimately what will be asked as we go forward is, is ideology all that bad?  Is pragmatism always all that good?  I mean, this will be, I think, the test for this Cabinet.

MR. GREGORY:  Michele.

MS. NORRIS:  I think you see someone who believes in the culture of argument. You see he appointed a lot of people who don’t necessarily agree with some of the stands that he took during the campaign.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. NORRIS:  I agree that that’s a combustible combination, because either that works well and you, you hammer it out and you develop solid policy, or you, you are stagnant, you don’t get anything done.  You also see in that Cabinet something interesting, an administration that appears to pay a lot of attention to the West.  I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many candidates who come out of the West, with Salazar...

MR. GREGORY:  A new area of Democratic electoral strength.

MS. NORRIS:  ...Napolitano, Richardson.

MS. MITCHELL:  You know, it’s also a meritocracy.  These are superstars, not afraid of strong personalities—Larry Summers inside the White House—but people with so much brain power and so much education, and a combination of, of talents here.  And maybe it’s combustible, but it’s clear from people who have been to briefings with him that he listens carefully, but he’s also very decisive...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...and he knows what he wants.  I—it’s going to be very interesting, though, to see whether this economic team is going to move toward what looks more and more like an industrial policy, which is antithetical to everything they’ve always stood for in the past.

MS. MARIN:  But it looks like...

MS. MITCHELL:  And how are they going to moderate that?

MR. GREGORY:  Just about 15 seconds, Erin.  Any thoughts on this?

MS. BURNETT:  Look, I think it’s—really comes down to this whole issue of labor.  It’s all about jobs and labor.  And there’s a crucial appointment in there when you look at Ron Kirk, pro-NAFTA, pro-China and the World Trade Organization...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. BURNETT:  ...this stands to my point, which is it all comes down to labor.  And maybe he’s going to take a stronger stance than we think.

MR. GREGORY:  All right, thank you all.  We’re going to leave it there.  But we’ll continue our discussion with our roundtable and ask them some rapid-fire predictions for the new year in our MEET THE PRESS Take Two Web extra.  It’s on our Web site this afternoon at mtp.msnbc.com.  We’ll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  That’s all for today.  And to our viewers who watch our rebroadcast at 6 PM on MSNBC, beginning next Sunday, we’ll be re-airing at 5 PM and 2 AM Eastern on MSNBC.

We’ll be back next week.  Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.  If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.

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