xfdfx FOX-HANNITY-01
<Show: FOX HANNITY>
<Date: May 28, 2009>
<Time: 21:00>
ADVERTISEMENT
<Tran: 052801cb.253>
<Type: Show>
<Head: Interview With Dick Morris>
<Sect: News; Domestic>
<Byline: Sean Hannity>
<Guest: Dick Morris>
<Spec: Politics; Policies; Government>
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The arrogance of hope. Now, we've seen it a couple of times this week, first with the nomination of a left- wing Supreme Court justice that we're all supposed to embrace. And then.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: I think people maybe don't entirely realize how extraordinarily productive we've been these four months. I would put these four months up against the four months of any prior administration since FDR.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. Really, Mr. President, you want to compare yourself to FDR, the man who helped lead the defeat of fascism? OK. Let's compare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FORMER PRESIDENT: Let me up my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
OBAMA: Our economy is in crisis.
ROOSEVELT: Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
OBAMA: It's the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights.
ROOSEVELT: There is an element in the readjustment of our financial system. More important than currency, more important than goal, and that is the confidence of the people themselves.
OBAMA: It's the job you thought you'd retire from but now have lost. The business you built your dreams upon, it's now hanging by a thread.
ROOSEVELT: Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan.
OBAMA: The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.
ROOSEVELT: Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day we've set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion.
OBAMA: We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.
ROOSEVELT: And our civilization.
OBAMA: In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.
ROOSEVELT: And to set free a suffering humanity.
OBAMA: America has shown arrogance.
ROOSEVELT: They fight to liberate.
OBAMA: Been dismissive. Even derisive.
ROOSEVELT: They fight to let justice arise and tolerance and goodwill among all like people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. So can anyone imagine FDR hanging out with a guy who bombed the Pentagon?
Joining us now is the author of Fleeced, former Clinton advisor, Dick Morris. Also you can get Dick's columns for free at -- is it really, Dick? Because nothing's for free.
DICK MORRIS, FLEECED AUTHOR: It's really free. I promise you. Absolutely.
HANNITY: All right. At DickMorris.com. All right. So he's now comparing himself to FDR. You know, so.
MORRIS: Move over on Mount Rushmore, make room for me. But you know, in a way, the comparison is an interesting one. Certainly in the first four months he's been very active and proposed a great many things, and many of them have passed, but in the book I'm coming out with in three weeks, Catastrophe, there's a whole section comparing FDR and Obama.
And FDR realized midway through his first term that this massive government spending was not going to solve unemployment. The lowest he ever got the unemployment rate was 13 percent. So when he had to run for reelection, and I'm reading from a manuscript copy now, it's not out yet.
Rather than hinge his case to the nation on his record in eradicating the depression, Roosevelt focused instead on class warfare, attacking the economic royalists who led news the depression.
And that's really what Obama is doing. By going after Wall Street and going after those who -- from whom we inherited this depression, he's really staking his position on class warfare rather than economic recovery.
HANNITY: Well, I agree with that, too, and I think he's bankrupting us and robbing from our kids and grandkids in the process.
Dick, I want to move on because I was listening with some interest in the interview you did yesterday with Bill about Sotomayor, and this is a debate we've had for a long time, in other words, should Republicans -- do you think this is a fait accompli, she's going to be on the Supreme Court, Republicans should back off, and I'm not mischaracterizing your position, correct?
MORRIS: No, you're -- as long as we -- as long as the Republicans don't have a tax issue or a nanny issue or a sexual harassment or one of those things. Remember how the Democrats plagued Clarence Thomas. They originally treated him with velvet gloves and did not come after him, and then when Anita Hill made her charges, they reopened the hearings, and then it was open season.
I think the Republicans have to be strategic here. Our goal has got to be to defeat this horrible health care proposal, and as far as I'm concerned, this is a side show that we're not going to win.
HANNITY: Well, is it a sideshow? And here's my point. And maybe this is an ongoing discussion that we've had both on the air and off air, and that is, look, she's a judicial activist. She made comments that if any white male had ever made, they would instantaneously be out of the process.
She has, apparently according to lawyers who have argued before, she doesn't have the judicial temperament. There are questions about her and her philosophy. If Republicans don't stand on principle, this is a lifetime appointment that can have a dramatic impact on society. If you don't stand on those principles, what do you stand for?
MORRIS: Yes. Well, I don't think it's a fight that we can win. But there are other fights that we can win, and one of them you and I were just talking about is the issue of Israel. Notice how deftly I changed the subject here, Sean.
HANNITY: Well, I have one more -- let me get to the Israel thing in a minute. For example, Chuck Schumer saying to your own peril will Republicans go after Sotomayor, but I didn't see Democrats having a hard time going after, quote, Miguel Estrada, that infamous memo, quote,
dangerous because he's Hispanic.
MORRIS: Right.
HANNITY: Didn't have a problem attacking Alberto Gonzales or Clarence Thomas. Why should Republicans be held to this different standard?
MORRIS: Well, with Thomas the Democrats did play it very strategically as I said, originally they were saying how great he was. And then when Anita Hill came forth with those I think bogus charges, the Republicans -- the Democrats began to pile on and began to attack Thomas, so I think the Republicans need to handle this gingerly.
HANNITY: Do you think with the -- the comment about Latina women versus white males, do you think this New Haven firefighter case, reverse discrimination, does any of that impress you at all?
MORRIS: Well, New Haven firefighter, I just don't agree with her. The Latina woman comment was outrageous. I mean if a white male judge said -- judicial candidate, said, I think a white man can do a better job of deciding a case than a Latina woman can, he'd be thrown off the court. He'd be impeached, let alone not confirmed. And I think clearly there is a double standard going on here.
HANNITY: All right. I got to give you credit. We're disagreeing a little bit on this, but I thought you wrote one of your best columns ever. I am very concerned about national security. We see what's happening with North Korea.
I'm very concerned about Ahmadinejad and Israel. Tell everybody what you put in this column about Israel.
MORRIS: Well, I believe that Obama has basically decided to allow Iran to go nuclear. I think that he's telling Netanyahu that there's a linkage, somehow Netanyahu has to surrender additional land for a Palestinian state where as we know full well from the experience in giving the Palestinians Gaza, that as soon as they get territory, they set up rocket launchers and use it to attack Israel.
Israel has to sign a phony peace deal with a group that doesn't want peace in order for the United States to be aggressive against Iran in stopping it from going nuclear. And then when Iran does go nuclear, it will be Netanyahu's fault.
I don't think that Obama realizes that Israel's existence now is at stake. That literally one atomic bomb dropped in the middle of Israel would kill six million Jews, the holocaust revisited.
Now on his trip to the Middle East, which is cynical if nothing, he's going to visit the holocaust museum while not visiting Israel, and in doing so he's going to send a message to Iran that we're going to side with the Muslims in this. We're going to side with the Arab world, and we'll posture and we'll tell you you shouldn't go nuclear just like we did with North Korea.
But just as with North Korea, there will be no consequence, but instead, if Israel attacks you, we're going to come down on Israel like a ton of bricks, and when Leon Panetta went to Jerusalem and met with the Israeli leadership before Obama came to the Middle East, his message was don't attack Iran.
So what we're doing is we're telling Iran we're going to let you do whatever you want, but Israel, we're going to draw you up sharply if you act on our ideals.
HANNITY: It's pretty frightening scenario. If he's really abandoned, and he's going to allow Ahmadinejad without consequences to get a nuclear weapon, Israel has no choice. Their very survival is at stake.
MORRIS: That's right.
HANNITY: So it's pretty scary. Dick, good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
MORRIS: Thank you.
HANNITY: All right. And coming up is Harry Reid in trouble? Now you won't believe the language that Harry Reid uses in his book, and he is directing it at one man and his mother, George W. Bush. We have shocking details straight ahead.
And be sure, by the way, join us tomorrow night, we have a special edition of HANNITY. We're calling it Waste 101. We're going to count down the 101 most ridiculous, absurd, obscene ways that the Obama administration is and has been wasting your hard-earned dollars.
A lot more to come straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Senator Harry Reid takes political discourse into the gutter in his book. Now we're going to tell you about his wildly inappropriate comments that he makes about George W. Bush and his mother. I'm not kidding, straight ahead.
Plus despite a record unemployment rate team Obama is touting the stimulus as a success. We're going to shine the spotlight on Robert Gibbs. He gets tonight's Lib-er-al Translation .
And a new poll is likely to send Arlen Specter's Senate campaign into panic mode. We've got the numbers. He won't like it. Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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.