'Reloading the Ideological Fight'

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," May 1, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight: He hates it here. He hates Washington. So he's splitting and going back to New Hampshire. Yes, Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring. Dick Morris and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich go "On the Record" about that. Plus, the Notre Dame commencement controversy gets amped up a huge notch as more people protest President Obama's speech at the school. Someone you know has just been arrested. We have a report. And will Miss California's activist opposition to gay marriage get her stripped of her crown? The Miss California pageant director is here to go "On the Record."

But first: conservatives -- they're scared. Who will President Obama pick for the Supreme Court?

Rush Limbaugh is expecting the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: The real fun for me is going to be watching all of these wacko fringe nutcases from the blogs and everything else start pressuring Obama to pick somebody like Ward Churchill. Now, I -- I'm also going to keep a sharp eye to see if his nominee has a tax problem because that seems to be standard operating procedure for Obama cabinet picks, and now we'll see if it holds for a Supreme Court nomination. The search will be on for a Supreme Court nominee who has a tax problem.

And Supreme Court Justice David Souter leaving the Supreme Court in June, so all the liberal eyes now turn to Obama for a replacement, a name, his first appointment destined to be reported. By the way, whoever he picks -- just like Gibbs, the greatest PR guy, the greatest spokesman ever -- whoever he picks, we're going to hear that it's the smartest, the best - - why, nobody could have ever found a person this good and this qualified to be on the Supreme Court! We all know the nominee is going to be a liberal. I mean, that's -- that's a given.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Dick Morris joins us live. And don't forget to sign up at Dickmorris.com to get all of Dick's columns e-mailed to you free.

Welcome, Dick. And Dick, Rush just talked about the pressure from the blogosphere. Is there really going to be any pressure from the blogosphere, in light of the fact that he does have a Democratic Senate, so it's not going to be a huge problem getting his nominee confirmed?

DICK MORRIS, AUTHOR, ``FLEECED'': No, no. This is a cinch for Obama. He's going to pick the youngest liberal he can find. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a kid just out of law school. Seriously, not, but he'll pick somebody in their 40s, most likely.

This -- the way you have to see this is it's basically reloading the ideological fight, just as George Bush reloaded the right when Rehnquist went away and he got Roberts and O'Connor got away and he got Alito. He reloaded with younger men and women. Now, on the left, they're going to do the same thing. You have three liberal judges who are probably going to retire in the next few years, Souter, Stevens and Ginsburg. And when they leave, they're all going to be replaced by liberals in their 40s or early 50s. It's the Nixon model, bring in young judges so you can control the Court. But it's still 5 to 4. The important question here is, Is David (SIC) Kennedy immortal or not?

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, what I can't figure out, though, is why now. What's sort of been at least typical, I think, is that they wait until the end of the term, which is the end of June. The fact that we're getting this on May 1, and there is the likelihood that there could be two more, Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg, just a possibility -- it just seems - - I mean, it's just unusual. I don't know if it means anything, but it's unusual.

MORRIS: Well, there's an agreement on the Supreme Court. Don't die until the president in office is of your party. So everybody agreed not to die on the right as long -- until Bush became president. They wouldn't die under Clinton. And then all the liberal -- all the conservative -- all the liberals are now -- at last, they can resign or die because they have a Democratic president. But the fundamental division of the Court, 5 to 4, remains in shape. And what it means is this division will last in perpetuity because both sides are going to be really young.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let's talk about President Obama. He still has high approval ratings. What do you think?

MORRIS: Well, Greta, you got to put those approval ratings in the context of the environment we're in. It's a little bit like the days right after 9/11. We need a president. We need to have faith in a president. We need to be able to tell ourselves that this president can lead us out of this depression or recession we're in. And if we conclude that we can't, that he can't, that's a huge step for an individual person to take.

So the metaphor I've used as it's like you come home from the wedding and you're a bride and you've been married to the man for 100 days, and now you find out that he snores and you don't like it. He's a slob and you don't like it. He doesn't brush his teeth. He doesn't bathe enough. But you're not going to divorce him. You're not even going to say you don't like him because it's 100 days and you're married to the guy.

And I think that if you really want to see where Obama's going to be at in five or six months, look beneath the approval rating. In the FOX News poll, they asked people, Which do you think is the greatest threat, more dangerous in America, big government or big business? And the public said big government by 55-35. Then they said, What do you think Obama thinks? And they said big business by 55 to 35, the exact opposite. And they asked, Do you think government should play a role in managing the economy? And they all said no. And do you think government should spend more and provide more services or less and provide fewer? Thirty-point margin for smaller.

And so that they really don't agree with anything he's doing, but they have to say they love him because he's the only president they have and we need a president right now.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right...

MORRIS: They're rooting for him.

VAN SUSTEREN: The far left loves him. The far right hates him. It's in the middle that's sort of -- the moderates are sort of in the "wait and see," the "wait and see" in terms of the economy. At what point are we out of the "wait and see" and we can make a judgment as a nation whether he's been a good steward on the economy?

MORRIS: Well, that's going to depend on what the -- how the media covers it. Right now, they're sycophantic. They're giving him the benefit of the doubt. I couldn't believe, Greta, at that press conference that he had on Wednesday, he gives this optimistic pitch at the beginning of the press congressman, he saved or created 500,000 jobs -- forget that there have been 5 million lost in the last four months -- and nobody challenges him on it. It's the end of the press conference...

VAN SUSTEREN: You know what, though? I'll tell...

MORRIS: ... when we get the question on the economy.

VAN SUSTEREN: I'll tell you -- I'll tell you, Dick, though, until the press corps sort of puts the president's feet to the fire -- these are so well scripted, not just with this president but before -- they get one question. They get called on. And in order to really grill somebody, you've got to have an opportunity to have follow-ups. You've got to be able to challenge it. Instead, it's the most staged, scripted event. And it's really -- it really demands the entire press corps to say, Look, we're going to do things differently. We're going to have follow-ups and we're going to grill you. That's just not happening. That doesn't happen.

MORRIS: No, but Greta, you're completely right. But this is the first press conference there have been no follow-ups. Every other press conference before, the reporter gets almost automatically a follow-up question.

VAN SUSTEREN: But not much of one. But not much of one.

MORRIS: And they're -- this time...

VAN SUSTEREN: You can't -- I mean, you can't -- you can't get much of one and you're thought of -- if you come back hard at the person, you're thought of as being rude. I mean, you have to have respect for the office of the presidency. But it's -- you know, these -- the presidents for the last few administrations, not just this one, they -- you know, they've controlled these events and they're just -- they're just staged.

MORRIS: Well, they're basically primetime speeches peppered by reporter questions. But your basic question deserves an answer. When will this become Obama's fault? When can he stopped citing the inheritance? Now, it's 100 days...

VAN SUSTEREN: Or take credit.

MORRIS: It's 100 days since he was elected. Now, Bush -- the depression started -- recession -- 120 days before Obama took office. So the middle of this month, he will have been in office longer than the recession was before. I think probably by Labor Day, unless we see a real economic growth, he's going to have a lot of explaining to do.

The more active he is now, the more he claims that he's doing stuff now, the more he's going to be held accountable for later. If he were a little more passive, people might say, Well, nobody could solve the problem. But because he's been so proactive, people are going to say, It's your fault. You're prolonging this recession.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, the other problem, too, is that if he's wrong, and if we just use August as a line of demarcation -- if he's wrong, you know, we don't have any more money in the coffers to give out. And so he's really -- and that's his ideology is that that's the way it's done. So at some point, you know, either he's going to be an enormous success or he's going to fall flat on his face. He's not going to be president medium.

MORRIS: Yes, I think that's completely right. And -- but bear in mind there's nothing in our coffers now. And one of the problems he has is how do you borrow $2 trillion in this environment? China can't lend it to us. They're not getting any exports sold in the U.S. How do you do it? The answer is you have to raise interest rates.

VAN SUSTEREN: Only...

MORRIS: And those interest rates...

VAN SUSTEREN: Or -- or...

MORRIS: ... nullify the effect of the spending.

VAN SUSTEREN: Or what the president says -- and that's why I say at what point do we judge him. The president thinks that if you put all this money into the economy, that for every dollar you put in, maybe you're going to get $2 back. And unless he can make money on his investment with debt, he's got major problems, and so do we.

MORRIS: Yes, and...

VAN SUSTEREN: I'll give you the last word, and we got to go.

MORRIS: Well, you're not even counting what's going to happen to him when he tears apart the health care system in this country and people have to wait on line for colonoscopies, when he does cap-and-trade, which will raise utility rates 50 percent, when he gives amnesty to illegal immigrants. Those are all coming up in the next three or four months, and they each carry with them an enormous amount of political pain.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. You're the first one of the week (ph) to say "colonoscopy" on the air, so Dick, you get the prize. Anyway, thank you, Dick.

MORRIS: Thank you.

Content and Programming Copyright 2009 FOX News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon FOX News Network, LLC'S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.