Rudy Giuliani: Mitt's Great. I'm Just Better

Rudy Giuliani meant to raise up GOP standardbearer Mitt Romney today, but his ego slipped into the monologue and he ended up damning his onetime rival with faint praise, reports Politico. First calling Romney "the perfect choice," Giuliani then defended his attacks on Romney during the 2008 campaign: "I was probably comparing his record to my record. I had massive reductions in unemployment. He had a reduction in unemployment of about 8, 10%—I think it was 15%. I had a reduction of unemployment of 50%. He had a growth of jobs of about 40,000, we had a growth of jobs of about 500,000. So I was comparing what I thought was my far superior record to his otherwise decent record." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial:

• Robert Gibbs on going negative on Bain: "People have a visceral reaction to Mitt Romney's time as head of Bain Capital. This is a criticism—and a good criticism, quite honestly—of Mitt Romney's only thesis for being president of the United States, that he's some kind of economic savior. He's very good at making money for his partners. He's not so good at creating jobs."
• John McCain on Syria: “Nearly 10,000 people have died. This is a brutal regime of incredible proportions. This administration has a feckless foreign policy that abandons American leadership. It cries out for American leadership, American leadership is not there."
• Leon Panetta on Romney's attack on the Afghanistan drawdown: “I think you’ve got 50 nations in NATO that agree to a plan in Afghanistan. It’s the Lisbon agreement, an agreement that, you know, others, President [George W.] Bush, President Obama, everyone has agreed is the direction that we go in Afghanistan. That is the plan that has been agreed to. And it’s a plan that is working."
• Sen. Patty Murray says veterans' benefits won't be cut during sequestration, but: "We have sent our troops to war without paying for it, now we are bringing them home without saying how we are paying for it."
• Sen. Dick Lugar on his ouster: "A large part of the Republican Party of Indiana believed, apparently, in the idea of individualism as opposed to community, a sense of no compromise as opposed to talking across the aisle."

(More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)