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It seems Obama advisor David Plouffe is about as tired of hearing the type of hyperbolic, over the top attacks from Romney attack dog Rudy Giuliani as I am. Giuliani was out there over the weekend, calling for President Obama to resign, continuing to politicize the embassy attack in Libya and politicizing the response to Hurricane Sandy, because we all know how competent Republicans are when it comes to responding to terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So much of this last week defined by Hurricane Sandy. The president's gotten a lot of praise from people like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, but it's not unanimous. Some pretty harsh criticism from the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, on CNN. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIULIANI: I don't know what the heck he was doing in Nevada while people are still being discovered dead in New York. I mean, if I were the president of the United States, I sure wouldn't be flitting around the Midwest and the West. I feel pretty darn offended seeing my president floating around, campaigning while people are suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your response?

PLOUFFE: Well, Mayor Giuliani is running around the country campaigning for Mitt Romney and popping off. The people in New York and New Jersey -- Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie, Governor Cuomo, Governor Malloy in Connecticut, Governor Tomblin of West Virginia -- they're working with this president and this administration and FEMA every day. And our focus needs to be -- and really the country has been united -- Mayor Giuliani may be an exception to this -- in focus on recovery, making sure we stand by those who've lost so much and need to recover, and this is going to take a long time.

But, you know, the federal government is doing all they can to partner with state and local officials. You know, we flew, you know, equipment, power equipment in C-17s from California to help restore power, getting fuel into the area, direct assistance to help people with lodging and food. So we're doing everything we can to make sure -- and this is going to take a while -- but that we stand by the people on the Eastern Seaboard who've been so affected.

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Keith Olbermann went after George W. Bush and the interview Rupert Murdoch's National Geographic Channel gave him with an opportunity to engage in a bit of revisionist history with his explanation with how he responded after the attacks on 9-11.

Keith hit Bush for changing the accounts of what happened on 9-11 such as saying that at first he thought a light aircraft hit one of the Twin Towers, and then later telling an Orlando town hall that he saw the first plane hit the first tower on television.

During his interview on Nat Geo, Bush tried to pretend that he was projecting “calm” when he was first notified of the attacks, and as Keith noted, “there are words to describe President Bush's expression at that moment. Calm is not one of them.” Confusion or panic would be better terms, as Keith noted, for what we saw from Bush that day.

During the Murdoch “documentary”, Bush claimed that he was the one who gave the order to shoot down commercial aircraft that refused to land. As Keith pointed out, maybe he did and maybe he didn't, and according to the 9-11 Commission it was Vice President Cheney who actually gave that order. And while Cheney said he spoke to President Bush first, there was never any confirmation of that.

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Ed Schultz awards Sean Hannity his Psycho Talk segment of the day for allowing Palin and Perino to go unchallenged on his show when they spout B.S.

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It looks like Mary Matalin, Chris Wallace and Bill Kristol all got their talking points from the same place for the Sunday shows this week. Matalin, like Wallace claims that we haven't been attacked since 9-11 and then names anthrax attacks as something that was prevented by the CIA after they tortured prisoners.

Uuummmm.... Mary, I hate to break this to you, but we were attacked by anthrax. But then you're fully aware of that already, aren't you? I doubt there's a single person in the Bush administration that has forgotten the event that was enough to scare some Democrats into voting for the invasion of Iraq.

I'm also wondering how many of the "attacks" she rattled off are on the list from Keith Olbermann's The Nexus of Politics and Terror? My guess is more than a few if she was forced to give specifics and maybe had someone besides her DINO husband and that hack John King sitting across the table from her.

As our own Jon Perr pointed out to me, Matalin is doing a good job of carrying water for Dick Cheney and his strategy to assure that torture is never investigated.

Transcript below the fold.

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While discussing the latest revelations from Tom Ridge's new book that the Homeland Security terrorist threat alerts were used for political purposes, Bill Kristol defends what happened just before the election where they decided it would be too obvious if they raised it again and uses that one example to claim that the program was not used for political purposes. Fox just loves them some little neo-con serial liars, don't they? Bill, just because they finally decided they over played their hand doesn't mean they weren't playing politics with the fear card.

Newshounds has the breakdown of just how the alerts were used in the run up to the election. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid:

2001

Oct 11: The FBI warned of imminent terrorist attacks in the US "in the next several days". Of course there was no indication of when or where these attacks would occur. There were no attacks.

Oct 29: The Administration warned of plans to strike the US "in the next week." No specifics such as dates or targets were given. There were no attacks.

Dec 3: Ridge warns that terrorist strikes "could happen within the next few weeks," possibly connected with the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan. There were no attacks.

2002

Jan 17: Ashcroft warns that suicide attacks "might be expected because of confidential information" the US government had received. No dates or places were given. Nothing more was ever heard about the "confidential information." There were no attacks.

Feb 10: The FBI warned there was a threat of "imminent attacks on the US that might happen as early as Feb 12." There were no attacks.

Mar 27: The government issued a warning that American citizens in 4 Italian cities "would be attacked on Easter Sunday." There were no attacks.

May 19: VP Cheney states that he is "certain of new attacks against the US". There were no attacks.

May 21: The FBI warned of imminent threat of� "attacks against the Brooklyn Bridge & the Statue of Liberty". There were no attacks.

Sep 10: The government raised the National Alert Level to orange stating that there would be "strikes against American sites on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attack". Air patrols were instituted & access to government buildings was prohibited. There were no attacks.

2003

Feb 8: Ridge & Ashcroft announced a high National Terror Alert, claiming they had "evidence that terrorists would attack American hotels & apartment buildings." There were no attacks.

Mar 17. National Alert Level raised to orange. No reasons are given. There were no attacks.

Mar 18. The Arizona National Guard was alerted & sent to a nuclear plant because "an attack by al Qaeda agents was imminent". There was no attack.

Dec 21: Ridge raised alert levels & warned that the" threat of imminent attack is now the most serious since 2001". There was no attack.

2004

Apr 2: The Administration warns about "pending terrorist attacks on buses & trains". There were no attacks.

May 26. Ashcroft & Mueller warn of a "plane attack inside the US" & that terrorists "were poised for an immediate attack". There was no attack.

Aug 1: Ridge raised the alert level to orange, claiming knowledge of plots against US financial institutions. It was later discovered that his "knowledge" was 4 years old & very unspecific. There was no attack.

And then of course we have Keith's reporting which at the time I'm surprised didn't get him kicked off of the air at MSNBC on the Nexus of Politics and Fear, which he just updated and my friend and fellow contributor here at Video Cafe CSPANJunkie just posted for me this week.

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h/t C&L'er Mugsy

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After Liz Cheney claims that her father never tried to tie Saddam Hussein to 9-11, while trying to tie Saddam Hussein to 9-11 herself, Mitchell stops her in her tracks for playing fast and loose with the facts. Mitchell then follows with this.

Mitchell: Well, I'm going to go back, I'll do my homework, invite you back so we can talk about this more because I think that there were if not explicit, implicit connections suggesting at various points along the way..one..

Cheney: Well that's not...that's actually not fair Andrea because I think that, you know after 9-11 the issue of Saddam, you know, became a critically important issue for our national security because of his connections to terrorists and because we believed he had stockpiles of WMD. We knew and he did continue to have the technology that he could share with the terrorists. That's a very different thing than saying he was connected to 9-11.

Break out the waaaambulance. Heaven forbid Cheney would want to allow something like a few facts to get in the way of her spin. I don't think we're going to see that follow up interview any time soon.

And yes, she's completely full of it.

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On Meet the Press Richard Wolffe takes Rich Lowry to task for his statements about how important no attacks on US soil are as opposed to attacks overseas and how that lack of concern is extremely short sighted and unfortunately David Gregory makes sure Lowry gets to spew some more right wing talking points in response to Wolffe without giving him a chance to respond.

Full transcript to follow.

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The conservative panel of David Brody, Stephen Hayes, Amy Holmes and Brian Debose on CNN's "The After Party" have themselves a little wing-nut delusion festival over how George Bush will be remembered. Hayes continues to perpetuate the myth that George Bush has kept us safe from a terrorist attack. Holmes has a big chuckle over whether Dick Cheney admitting to torture will be a problem for them or not and thinks it won't matter since Bush has only got a month left in office. I guess she thinks there is some statute of limitations on what's been done that expires when Bush leaves office or that The Hague won't deal with if our country and the Obama administration sadly does not. And Brian Debose seems to think that torturing prisoners is legal but maybe not moral and that is his only concern with what's happened. Rough transcript for anyone that can't watch the video:

Brody: Alright let's move on to President Bush, his legacy. He's on the magical mystery tour now, whatever he's doing and do you get a sense Steve, what is this going to be like exactly for George Bush? How will he be remembered? Is this going to be a Harry Truman type situation where he wasn't looked upon all that great coming out of office but maybe give it ten, fifteen, fifty, seventy five years?

Hayes: Well I think that's their hope but they're certainly not taking any chances so I think the Bush administration and his top advisers have been working now for more than six months to help shape this legacy. They've been working on this thing called the Bush Legacy Project where they've been meeting regularly talking about the kind of things that they want to highlight to the country as he's on his way out.

I mean I think, you know it was easy to listen to the progressives sort of down play the fact that we haven't been attacked since 9-11. But if you look back at the public opinion polls taken at the time you know some eighty percent of Americans thought we'd not only be attacked again but we'd be subject to a major catastrophic attack. It's a big deal and it's because of his policies that we haven't been attacked.

Brody: This administration has taken some major hits over waterboarding and torture, especially Dick Cheney. Let me play a clip of Dick Cheney this week on ABC.

[Cut to video.]

Brody: Amy, how much of a problem is this for the administration?

Holmes: With one month to go, not very much and when you look at Gitmo even in the New York Times a few weeks ago said well letting them out, that could be a little tricky. Do we want to throw them into our Federal court system where they could maybe use it against us. Rendition is difficult because these countries actually don't want these guys. These are actual real terrorists that are down there. And we don't have any easy answers and all of the sudden the New York Times figured that out now that Barack Obama is going to be the Commander in Chief.

Debose: That has been the argument all together. The only problem I have with some of the messaging that has come out with respect to Dick Cheney is trying to defend the morality of torture and other things that went on versus the legality. You can defend the legality. Morally that is something totally different and I don't like the merger of those two things. That's, that's the only thing that's really been problematic.