This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," December 25, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
DOUG MCKELWAY, ANCHOR: We're back with the panel. We couldn't let Christmas day pass without a naughty and nice list. Let's start with Bill.
BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: The word "nice" doesn't automatically go with the late Bob Bork, though he was really a nice man beneath his rather gruff exterior and very dry wit. He died last week and I just wanted want to pay respect to him here for both of course his incredible public achievements as a law professor and legal scholar as a judge, as a public servant, a very principled and courageous public servant, but also for those of us who knew him, a really -- a wonderful man beneath a very kind of gruff, as I say, exterior and dry wit -- a really, a warm man.
At his funeral on Saturday, a very lovely and dignified funeral, they had on the program, a couple of quotes from Saint Thomas Moore, quotes which I guess -- I assume he very much liked. One was relevant to fiscal cliff discussion actually. "What you cannot turn to good you must at least make as little bad as you can," which is Thomas Moore, which a good, a very Bob Bork-like sentiment I think for guiding yourself in Washington. At least make the bad as little bad as you can.
The other quote from Thomas Moore, "You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds." I really love that. "You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds." So for me just Bob Bork dying a week before Christmas, I wanted to pay my respects to him here.
Naughty, how about baby boomers, the baby boomer generation? We followed the greatest generation who saved us from Nazism and actually in a way really won the Cold War as well. And to Ronald Reagan who was not a baby-boomer, we seem to have come close to bankrupting the country and haven't done a very good job of leadership, but I hope our kid's generation is maybe more like their grandparents than like us. So for me, I'm happy to dump on my fellow baby boomers.
MCKELWAY: We're going to be around a long time Bill. You have to deal with us. Juan, naughty or nice?
JUAN WILLIAMS, SENIOR EDITOR, THE HILL: Let's start with nice. And I think nice goes to David Axelrod, who ran President Obama's campaign. You might at first think that I am talking about the success, this is the second time, so he's been a winner in two presidential campaigns. But it's really on a very human level what he did in honor of his daughter, which is that David, who has had that mustache for more than 30 years, shaved it off to raise more than $1 million for epilepsy. His daughter suffers from epilepsy. And David went out of his way to, I think, stand up and say here is an opportunity for everyone to turn what was oftentimes a bitter campaign, to something very positive. And on this Christmas day, I think it was a real example to us all that no matter who we are, what we do, at some point we're human beings and we can help each other out.
MCKELWAY: There is one of us on this panel who has a mustache, let me point out.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
KRAUTHAMMER: How much Juan?
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: For naughty, I would pick Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. I thought his press conference the other day was appalling. And, again a reminder that some people, especially the people who sell guns in this country and represented by the NRA, are totally out of touch with a crisis in this country about the easy accessibility to firearms.
MCKELWAY: I want to ask you though, for every person who is outraged by the number of weapons and the caliber of weapons we have, there is another guy who says I deserve to protect my family. What do you want me to do, call the police?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think you should call the police. But I think everybody else has also a right to public safety. And clearly we're at the point where public safety is in danger, when people like Mr. LaPierre are talking about having to put an armed guard in every school. At some point you have to say, well this is really over the line. We as a society need to recalibrate.
MCKELWAY: Charles, naughty and nice?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: That quote we saw earlier about the negotiation between Obama and Boehner, where he says I give you $800 billion, what do I get? You get nothing. Leo Durocher, the great philosopher, once said, "nice guys finish last." He's a nice guy on the fiscal cliff. And naughty, the worst man on the planet is Bashar Assad -- 40,000 dead because of him and thousands to come after he is driven out of office. You can't get any naughtier than that.
MCKELWAY: What is his fate in your mind?
KRAUTHAMMER: There are three fates. He stays in power, which is extremely unlikely. He is killed, probably by his own people if he tries to escape. Or he could try to escape to a canton, that was independent in the '20s, an Allawite province. That is his tribe. It's sort of walled off with mountains around it, and sort of then create a mini-country, which is possible. It's on the sea so the Iranians and the Russians could support him. That I think is the least likely but it would create the most chaos because the civil war would continue forever.
MCKELWAY: But he remains a pariah and a marked man.
KRAUTHAMMER: He should be. And whatever he gets he deserves and I don't think it's going to be a good ending.
MCKELWAY: Panel, thank you very much. That's going to do it for the panel. But stay tuned for a really special message from the four Baiers, as in Bret Baiers.
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