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After watching the ever widening list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, and hearing that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani may again consider throwing his hat into that ring, Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's Last Word proceeded to shred Giuliani for his handling of the crisis on 9/11 and went after the BIG LIE on what happened that day.

Counter to our media's general narrative on the topic, Giuliani actually cost the lives of firefighters with his mismanagement of the disaster. O'Donnell noted Wayne Barrett's article on the topic and was pretty well reading from part of it. There's a whole lot more there, so go read the rest, but here's part of the article on BIG LIE number two that O'Donnell discussed during the segment in the video above.

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11:

BIG LIE

2. 'I don't think there was anyplace in the country, including the federal government, that was as well prepared for that attack as New York City was in 2001.' This assertion flies in the face of all three studies of the city's response—the 9/11 Commission, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), and McKinsey & Co., the consulting firm hired by the Bloomberg administration.

Actually, Giuliani didn't create the OEM until three years after the 1993 bombing, 27 months into his term. And he didn't open the OEM's new emergency command center until the end of 1999—nearly six years after he'd taken office. If he "assumed from the moment I came into office that NYC would be the subject of a terrorist attack," as he told Time when it made him "Person of the Year" in 2001, he sure took a long time to erect what he describes as the city's front line of defense.

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Mr. A-Noun-a-Verb-and-9-11 who put the counter terrorism command center in the basement of the World Trade Center, even though he was told that might not be such a good idea, and ran around like a chicken with his head cut off because he had nowhere to work from on 9-11, is Sean Hannity's idea of a great leader. The man has done nothing but profit from his "expertise" since he left office. I guess if not being prepared to respond to a terrorist attack makes you an expert, then Giuliani is highly qualified. We've also got a major case of projection going on during this interview.

HANNITY: All right. All right. You're known for your leadership in 9/11. I mean you walked out there. You were with the people of New York on a daily basis.

How would you rate the president's handling of the gulf crisis?

GIULIANI: It couldn't be worse. This would be an example, if you are taught leadership 101 of exactly what not to do. Minimize it at first. Two days after or three days after it happened, go on vacation. He's been on vacation more often than he has by far been to Louisiana or Mississippi or any of the places affected.

HANNITY: Or playing golf or shooting hoops.

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told ABC's Jake Tapper that authorities had not found any evidence that the bomb scare in New York City was part of a larger plot.

"We have no evidence right now that this is anything other than a one off," said Napolitano.

The federal government is treating the incident as a potential terrorist attack.

UPDATE (Nicole): Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for NYC bomb scare

UPDATE 2 (Nicole): The NYPD is discounting any foreign presence in the failed car bombing. Per HuffPo:

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced at a press conference this afternoon that the NYPD is working on several leads related to Saturday night's failed car bomb attack in Times Square.

Kelly said the police identified the owner of the Nissan Pathfinder used in the plot. Investigators are also analyzing a video of a white male, in his 40s who was seen acting suspiciously around the car.

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Pete Hoekstra is still beating the dead horse that John Brennan should be fired even though the Republicans used to like Brennan when he was working for Republicans and latching onto one comment about whether the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was working alone or not.

Coming from a guy who can't keep his mouth shut when it comes to leaking national security issues every time someone lets him know what's going on, Hoekstra preaching to anyone about national security is a joke. Hoekstra cares about terrorism if he thinks it can score him political points and if he can use scaring the public on terrorism to raise some money. Don't count on Greta to ever point that out but Think Progress did a good job here.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking member on the House intelligence committee and a candidate for governor of Michigan, is continuing his efforts to score political points off the attempted Christmas day airline bombing. In a fundraising letter acquired by the Grand Rapids Press, Hoekstra writes, “Barack Obama’s policies may impress the ‘Blame America First’ crowd at home and his thousands of fans overseas, but they sure don’t do anything to protect our families in Michigan or the rest of America.” To justify this attack of treasonous presidential behavior, Hoekstra claimed Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said “the system worked”

[...]

In fact, Napolitano said that “the system” worked “once the incident occurred” — referring only to the post-incident response — a comment similar to ones made by the Bush administration. She has since made clear that the system of preventing such attacks “did not work.” “If you agree that we need a Governor who will stand up the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security,” Hoekstra writes, “please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250 to my campaign.”

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Rudy Giuliani came on The Situation Room to attempt to clarify his remarks on Good Morning America and still has his facts wrong. John's right. The media needs to give this liar a time out. Rudy now wants us to believe that he meant to say we weren't attacked since Sept. 11th on George Bush's watch. When asked about the anthrax attacks, Giuliani claims that wasn't a terrorist attack because the FBI didn't ever figure out who did it, and it "was not done in the name of Islamic terrorism".

Of course Blitzer didn't point out how utterly ridiculous that statement is, or some of the other domestic terrorist attacks that happened on Bush's watch as well, so he didn't do much better than George Stephanopoulos' bit of stenography on Good Morning America.

Media Matters reminds us of some of the terrorist attacks that happened on George Bush's watch. It seems Rudy Giuliani has joined the ranks of Dana Perino and Mary Matalin with hoping that Americans have very short memory spans, and don't know how to use the Google.

For more go check out this most excellent set of graphs put together by Bob Cesca--Terrorist Attacks and Presidents. He pretty well blows out of the water this latest Republican talking point that George Bush kept us safe from terrorists. Nice work Bob.

RUDY GIULIANI: Wolf, you want to know if I forget about September 11th?

BLITZER: I'm sure you didn't.

GIULIANI: No. No.

BLITZER: But you did say this on...

GIULIANI: I...

BLITZER: ..."Good Morning America." I'll play the little clip and then you'll explain what you had in mind.

GIULIANI: Yes. I know. This is so silly. But go ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "GOOD MORNING AMERICA," COURTESY ABC)

GIULIANI: What he should be doing is following the right things that Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat it was a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. As you know, the blogosphere is going crazy with that, the comment, we had no domestic attacks under Bush.

All right, you remember at least one, don't you?

GIULIANI: No, here -- here's what I usually say when I said that -- and I did not put that -- those words in. I said -- I usually say we had no domestic attacks, no major domestic attack under President Bush since September 11th. And the reason I say it is on September 11th and the days after September 11th, I received many briefings, many warnings, as the mayor of New York, that we were going to be attacked again, that we were going to be attacked frequently.

And I think many people are surprised, even those people who hate President Bush -- I think many people were surprised that we didn't have those major attacks and that at least some of the things that President Bush was warning was helping in making certain that we didn't have any kind of major terrorist attack.

I did omit the words "since September 11th." I apologize for that. I should have put it in. I do remember September 11th. In fact, Wolf, I remember it every single day and usually frequently during the day.

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Seems Mary Matalin was doing a bit of history revision on this week's State of the Union on CNN. Think Progress has more--Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacks:

On CNN today, GOP strategist and former Dick Cheney adviser Mary Matalin argued that President Obama is speaking too much about the severe debt, deficits, and economic recession he inherited from the previous administration. Defending her former boss, Matalin charged that President Bush had in fact “inherited a recession” and the September 11th attacks from President Clinton.

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As Lee noted, it looks like Matalin is joining the ranks of Ms. We Did Not Have a Terrorist Attack on our Country During President Bush's Term Perino with trying to whitewash the record of the Bush administration.

KING: The politics of the economy. Do the Republicans have that right? Deficits and maybe giving Congress too much control in writing this legislation? Is that a problem for this president? How has he been as a leader in his first year?

MATALIN: It's not just the deficits. It's the dud. It's incomprehensible. And it's the Bush fashion in perpetuity. Never gives a speech where he doesn't explicitly or implicitly look backwards.

I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.

So there are two different ways to deal with this. He's choosing the way that Democrats always deal with it. But doing it at such a magnitude. The spending is unprecedented. The debt is unprecedented. And whatever the recession was that he inherited that was global did not -- the response is such an overkill that we will be settled with this forever.

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Rep. Peter King thinks the Obama administration's failure to have either the president himself or one of his officials give a press conference on the attempted Delta airline bombing is somehow the same as Bush not showing up in New Orleans right away after Katrina. I guess King wasn't satisfied that Rep. Pete Hoekstra was the only one going out there making a fool of himself immediately politicizing this thing.

Sorry pal but President Obama not rushing out to do a press conference about this attempted bombing that they probably don't even have a lot of answers on yet is not even remotely the same thing as Bush completely ignoring Hurricane Katrina and what was going on in New Orleans to the point where his aides finally had to put together footage on a DVD days later and get him to watch it for him to even have any idea what was happening down there. Unbelievable. And CNN's Drew Griffin was more than happy to help King along with this history revisionism.

For a reminder of how Bush reacted to Hurricane Katrina, here's a timeline put together by Think Progress.

Griffin also pointed out right after King got off the air with him that Janet Napolitano was going to be on State of the Union on CNN Sunday morning. I guess that's not soon enough to suit King and of course Griffin didn't bring that up while he still had him on the air either.

The Political Carnival pointed out another problem with King's hackery here--Pete King's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Memory:

Just now on CNN, Petey said that the ObamAdministration banned the word "terrorism", which is, of course, why Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab managed to smuggle explosives on board a jetliner.

Lose a word, gain a terrorist. See the logic?

Me neither.

No, Obama never eliminated the word "terrorism" from the government lexicon. It was the phrase "war on terror", one of the stupidest phrases ever concocted by any administration ever. That's why this administration is using different words. President Obama, rightfully, wouldn't want any association whatsoever with BushCoSpeak.

See? Some there is some change we can believe in.

So hey, Bogus Petey, check this out. It may jog your "memory".

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Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Happy holidays from Glenn Beck everybody! Beck in another one of his phony populist rants asks his audience to imagine a terrorist attack on the United States where we’re as lucky as we were when the World Trade Center was hit. Just when I think this clown can't get much worse, he manages to one up himself again. I will be thankful when he finally is no longer polluting our airways.

Beck: You know everything is too big to fail, but nobody talks about the little guy. Nobody talks about the individual. Let me ask you this question. Please ponder this over the holiday season. Heaven forbid anything happens. God help us if al Qaeda would come but imagine if somebody could succeed in blowing up any of our great American icons. If they destroyed all of Washington, let’s just pretend that we would be as lucky as we were with the World Trade Center where everybody was gone or most people were gone—and they destroyed the Washington Monument and everything else—all of our enduring symbols, all the monuments we’ve always treasured—would it matter?

I don’t think so. The monuments are meaningless. The monuments are there to remind us who we are. But we have forgotten. We have become about the structure. We are the people that defeated the most powerful empire on earth as a group of rag-tag farming colonists. We were the people that explored. We mapped. We tamed the west. We crossed the mountains in wagons. We stunned the world with technical marvels and defeated the Nazis. We defeated the communists. We walked on the moon.

Nobody else has ever done that. We are Americans—rich or poor. We have always believed in the rugged individualism and self-actualization. We are not the people I think the people in Washington think we are. We are not fearful people. We are not people that give in or give up. We’re not about to give into some new whiney mentality where “Ooh, somebody help me”. That’s not who we are.

The only one that is too big to fail is you. And the only one that will, the only one that will create your failure is you. The only way the United States government, or the United States of America, or we fail as a collective is if we fail as individuals. And the only way guaranteed we as individuals will fail is to depend on the government to prop us up. That is just not who we are. And for me I am thankful for that.

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How's that recent nomination working out for you President Obama? Dana Perino decided to show her thanks by implying that the Obama administration did not want to call the shootings at Fort Hood a terrorist attack for political reasons, and went on to say this:

Perino: We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term. I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is.

Apparently, in the carefully airbrushed world that is Planet Wingnuttia, the 9/11 attacks happened on, um, lessee, musta been President Clinton's watch! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Of course Hannity wasn't going to bother to correct her. I'll repeat here what Logan said:

Perino's appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, so it's not a done deal, but we have to make our voices heard. Contact your Senators and let them know your thoughts on the matter.

Dave N: Just for the record, let's recall Bush's real record -- and not the one Republicans want to airbrush into our collective memories -- in terms of keeping us safe:

[After the 9/11 attacks], of course, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the press: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." (As a matter of fact, just such a scenario had been foreseen by intelligence officials in 1998, as Rice later admitted.)

Then there was the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US," which concluded:

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Lou Dobbs calls out Chuck Schumer for his waffling on whether Americans would accept torture being used in the phony ticking time bomb scenario. He then asks his audience to participate in an on line poll and asks whether they would "personally employ torture to save American lives and prevent an attack on this country?" And surprise, surprise...the overwhelming answer is...YES! Looks like all that fear mongering is paying off well for you. What's next Lou? You going to ask them if they'd like to shoot Mexicans to put an end to illegal immigration?

Go after Schumer or anyone else for their double talk on this issue, but asking Americans if they would participate in torture? Lou I hate to break it to you, but 24 is a television show. The ticking time bomb scenario doesn't happen in real life. And torture is illegal. You should not be pushing it as something acceptable in our society.