Obama introduces more of his economic team

President-elect Barack Obama, introducing more appointees to the economic team that will grapple with job losses and severe problems in the financial sector, took the opportunity Thursday to deliver some thoughts about personal responsibility and civility.

“There’s not a lot of adult supervision out there, whether it’s in the political world or the financial world,” he said.

“We have been asleep at the switch,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, “not just some of the regulatory agencies, but some of the congressional committees that might have been taking a look at this stuff.

“We have not been as aggressive. And we’ve had a White House that started with the premise that deregulation was always good.”

His comments suggested that a regulatory crackdown could be part of his response to the current economic downturn.

They came as he introduced Mary Schapiro, head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, as his choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Schapiro’s appointment was rumored Wednesday.

Obama, at the news conference, also named former Treasury official Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Georgetown law professor Dan Tarullo to serve as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board.

“If the financial crisis has taught us anything, it’s that this failure of oversight and accountability doesn’t just harm individuals involved,” Obama said.

“It has the potential to devastate our entire economy, and that’s a failure we can’t afford.”

Today Obama is expected to round out his economic team by naming Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) as his Labor secretary and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk as U.S. trade representative -- all but completing his Cabinet and senior appointments before he leaves for a Christmas vacation in Hawaii.

Solis is considered a friend of organized labor, and union officials hailed the choice. Labor leaders are uneasy with Kirk, because of his past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many unions blame for job losses.

In commenting on the nation’s problems, Obama also called for “a restoration of a sense of responsibility, that all of us have responsibilities to operate honorably,” as well as of the principle of “advocating not just for ourselves, but what’s good for the country . . . operating not just out of greed, but operating out of a sense for the common good.”

He struck a similar note when asked about his choice of Rick Warren -- pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and author of the best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life” -- to give the invocation at his inauguration.

Gay rights protest Obama’s selection of Warren, in part because Warren supported Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to declare that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” In a statement Thursday, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, called Obama’s choice “extremely disappointing and hurtful,” and said he would decline an invitation to attend the inauguration.

Asked about the selection of Warren, which became known Wednesday, Obama called on Americans to “come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues.”

“We’re not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common,” Obama said. He noted that civil rights activist Joseph Lowery would also speak at the inauguration.

In a written statement Thursday, Warren commended Obama “for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue, to offer the invocation.”

Warren continued: “Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.”

Obama opposed Proposition 8 even though he, like Warren, opposes same-sex marriages. Aides said earlier this year that Obama believes state constitutional amendments such as Proposition 8 can threaten the legality of same-sex civil unions, which Obama supports.

Obama said that he had been invited to speak at Warren’s church in recent years despite the pastor’s “awareness that I have views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues about abortion.”

“That dialogue is what my campaign was all about,” Obama said. “The magic of this country is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated. And so that’s the spirit in which we have put together what I think will be a terrific inauguration.”

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cparsons@tribune.com

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

RON KIRK

Age: 54

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Experience: Partner, Vinson & Elkins, 2000-present; Dallas mayor, 1995-2001; partner, Gardere & Wynne; Texas secretary of state, 1994; Dallas, assistant city attorney and chief lobbyist, 1983-89; legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, 1981-83.

Education: Bachelor’s in political science and sociology, Austin College, 1976; law degree, University of Texas, 1979.

Family: Married; two children.

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Source: Associated Press