Not with the comments coming from New York Rep. Peter King–who clearly still has Rubio’s vote against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill fresh on his mind.

In response to a Politico report that describes Rubio’s recent courting of several finance titans on Wall Street, including at Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capitol and the Blackstone Group (where he was photographed on his penguin march alongside CEO Stephen Schwarzman and a pair of actual penguins)  King, a Republican, told Politicker:

“Being from New York, we’re not supposed to be suckers...It’s bad enough that these guys voted against it, that’s inexcusable enough. But to have the balls to come in and say, ‘We screwed you. Now make us president.’”

King also urged his fellow New Yorkers to let donations to Rubio–and any other politician who voted against Sandy relief– run dry.

Many on Wall Street have already proven bullish on the politician Time magazine described as “The Republican Savior.” We’ll see if if his ambition will ultimately be quenched.

“It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch,” Fernstrom said–an unwitting confirmation of the “flip flop” indictment against the Romney campaign. “You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

Ultimately, the campaign was unable to shake off the slip.

Fast forward to Sunday, and it was Romney chief strategist Stuart Stevens on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” offering a similarly honest acknowledgement about the doomed campaign. “The constant critique that he was an uncomfortable politician, that he was awkward, that he had trouble connecting with ordinary voters,” host Howard Kurtz said, setting up a question about whether the media distorted the picture of Mitt Romney, whether the candidate brought it upon himself or whether the responsibility was shared.

“Campaigning for president is a series of, sort of, Kabuki play set pieces that you go through,” Stevens said. “It is difficult to display the totality of someone in those moments.”

CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME OF STEVENS’ INTERVIEW IN TODAY’S TOP LINES

Like Fehrnstrom, Stevens used a revealing–and unflattering–analogy: that Romney was merely an actor, wearing an elaborate costume and offering voters little more than manufactured stagecraft.

It should be noted that Stevens also took responsibility for the Romney campaign’s failures–the candidate’s personal failures aside.

“Just blame me. That’s fine and let’s move on,” Stevens said. “And let’s go on and win races and learn from what we did.”

We may get Romney’s own perspective on Sunday, when Mitt and Ann Romney will be interviewed by Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” Romney is then slated to speak at the annual CPAC conference next month.

Steve Kornacki and Ken Vogel joined Martin to take on the Romney rehash in the segment below–and discuss what lessons Republicans need to know moving forward.

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• Details on this week’s whirlwind. (First Read)
• Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, called a “national registry of firearms” legislation as dead on arrival in the Senate on “Fox News Sunday.” (Fox News)
• On the topic of “Fox News Sunday”—Mitt and Ann Romney will give their first post-election interview next Sunday before his appearance at CPAC. (HuffingtonPost)
• Romney’s chief strategist was on a Sunday show of his own this week, telling “Reliable Sources” the media is not “in the tank” for Barack Obama. (Mediaite)
• Gov. Rick Perry calls the idea of Texas going Democratic blue a “pipe dream”. (HuffingtonPost)
• Here’s the back-and-forth on Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his belief about communists at Harvard Law School. (The New Yorker)
• The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre had another speaking engagement this Saturday—this time to the 2013 Western Hunting and Conservation Expo. (TPM)
• Politico posits the question: Will Hillary clear the field in 2016? (Politico)
• Oh, and First Lady Michelle Obama made an Oscar appearance—cue the outrage from the right. See the photo. (Pete Souza)

Painted on the side of the popular chicken-and-waffles joint in Houston, The Breakfast Klub, is a mural of the president—actually, now several versions of a mural of the president.

Artist Reginald Adams painted the original mural in October 2008, basing it on the iconic “Hope” campaign poster.

The original was first vandalized with simple graffiti in March 2010; restored and vandalized with red, white, blue paint in November 2010; restored and vandalized with paint again, this time just red, in October 2012.

The original 2008 mural after it was vandalized for the first time.

At that point, a new mural was painted—this one adapted from a well-known photo of the incumbent Commander-in-Chief above an Obama 2012 logo. The president, of course, went on to win re-election the very next month. Davis also debuted a surveillance camera on the mural to catch any would-be vandals.

The second mural, before a vandal or vandals struck.

New mural. New target.

In January, a vandal or vandals struck again, this time using two big cans of paint – black and yellow - splattered across the wall.

The second mural after it was vandalized in January.

Marcus Davis was resolute. Earlier this month, he commissioned an ever bigger Adams mural—this one based on a classic political moment, Obama kissing a baby girl atop a Stars and Stripes wallpaper.

This Monday, President’s Day, the Houston Police Department responded to a call at The Breakfast Klub. Marcus Davis had confronted and collared someone he believed—based on surveillance of the previous incident, the behavior of the person and, he says, a can of paint recovered—was about to strike the mural again.

A police spokesman for the department confirmed that officers arrived, everyone at the scene was interviewed, and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was contacted but declined to press charges as no vandalization had occurred.

Adding a twist to the story, Davis has fielded questions on the controversy—which involves his property and First Amendment rights—holding a weapon.

“I’m also a Texan,” Davis said when asked whether the gun he had slung on his back in Houston Chronicle photos was a real gun or a pellet gun. Davis said it was an AR-15 he is licensed to carry.

So would he use the gun? He certainly seems unyielding.

See the interview below for his response.

Marcus Davis has vowed to protect his property and First Amendment rights.

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For Wayne LaPierre, it’s the “hellish” world of looters running “wild in south Brooklyn” in superstorm Sandy’s aftermath.

“There was no food, water or electricity,” the NRA chief executive wrote in a racially charged and factually challenged Daily Caller op-ed. “And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

LaPierre’s specter of a lawless America—and the need for an at-home arsenal—is a fresh take on the same fear-mongering the South Carolina senator rolled out before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 30.

During that hearing on gun violence in America, at which LaPierre testified, Graham invoked the riots in Los Angeles to justify his need for an AR-15. He specifically cited gangs in the streets “raping” women, evidence of which is hard to find, and may not exist at all.

Like the testimony of Graham—who enjoys an A-rating from the NRA—the op-ed by LaPierre callously pushed aside facts for fear.

According to New York Police Department statistics, post-Sandy murders dropped 86% year-over-year citywide; robberies were down; grand larcenies, auto thefts and felony assaults—all down. Only burglaries saw a slight uptick.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the New York Daily News in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy that a decrease in violent crime was not unexpected.

“After a natural disaster or large-scale catastrophe like 9/11, we see conventional crime come down,” Browne said. “A lot of people are indoors. Taverns are closed. You have less people out late at night and getting into disputes.”

Of course, in LaPierre’s dystopian vision of America, President Obama’s economic policies will have bankrupted the nation, forcing cities to shutter police stations.

“Nobody knows if or when the fiscal collapse will come, but if the country is broke, there likely won’t be enough money to pay for police protection,” LaPierre writes. “And the American people know it.”

LaPierre will deliver his response to the State of the Union, in which the president said that victims of gun violence “deserve a vote” on gun safety measures, at the annual convention of the National Wild Turkey Federation this evening.

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“I’ve seen it, I’m clearly not going to dignify it by speaking about it here,” Victoria Nuland, State Department spokesman, said at a briefing.

Nuland said Secretary of State John Kerry spoke today to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi about North Korea’s provocative nuclear testing rhetoric, and the need for consequences if the reclusive state fails to cooperate with existing UN sanctions. Until recently, China had been one of North Korea’s few remaining allies.

The call  follows similar conservations over the weekend with Kerry’s counterparts in Japan and South Korea, which warned at a UN press conference Monday about an “imminent threat” of nuclear testing by their northern neighbor.

In late January, North Korea unleashed its harshest language toward the United States since Kim Jong-Un took power, pledging to build up its arsenal and test nuclear weapons and describing the U.S. as the “sworn enemy of the Korean people.” The defiant move came days after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that tightened sanctions against the country and condemned the Dec. 12 North Korea rocket launch as a violation of an existing resolution.

The North Korean propaganda video, originally uploaded Saturday to a YouTube site that carries state-run media, can now be seen on LiveLeak.

What the overall production lacks in quality, it makes up for in offensiveness. The dream sequence ultimately shows an American city in ruins after a fiery attack.

According to a translation by The New York Times, the subtitles over the video read in part: “It appears that the headquarters of evil, which has had a habit of using force and unilateralism and committing wars of aggression, is going up in flames it itself has ignited. Just imagine riding in a Korean spaceship. One day, my dream will come true. No matter how hard the imperialists try to isolate and stifle us, they will not stop our people’s path toward our final victory of achieving a unified, strong and prosperous Korea.”

The video is also set to a bizarre instrumental of “We Are the World,” written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie and performed by a supergroup in 1985 to raise money for African famine relief.

The video-game blog Kotaku identifies the doomsday footage from the North Korean propaganda video as coming from the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

For some Super Bowl viewers, there was also an invitation to “the curious, the inquisitive, and the seekers of knowledge” to consider the Church of Scientology.

The 30-second advertisement for the controversial church, cut down from this 1-minute spot, ran during halftime of the Super Bowl in some television markets, including Los Angeles and New York.

As of this posting, the church, which has claimed tax exempt status since 1993, had not responded to a question about the full extent of the buy–or how much was spent for the airtime.

What is clear is the ad, titled “Knowledge” and filled with education imagery and attractive young people in various states of contemplation, directly challenges many criticisms that have stung the church and tarnished its brand.

Appealing to “the rebels, the artists, the free thinkers and the innovators, who care less about labels and more about truth,” the ad suggests Scientology is a place for absolute free thought–not the image of a controlling, secretive environment the church almost constantly defends against.

“The fuel of that power is not magic or mysticism, but knowledge,” the narrator assures, challenging skeptics of the faith.

“Dare to think for yourself, to look for yourself, to make up your own mind, because in the eternal debate for answers, the one thing that’s true, is what’s true for you,” the narrator concludes.

The high–profile public relations play comes amid the release of a new book–“Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief”–written by Pulitzer-prize winning writer Lawrence Wright, who traces the path of the religion from its founding by L. Ron Hubbard to today.

On Morning Joe Monday, Wright cited interviews with more than 200 current former Scientologists, including members of the Sea Org, the ranking members of the church. Some, Wright said, have made claims of abuse by Hubbard successor and current church leader David Miscavige.

“There is involuntary confinement, there are people who have been locked up in these re-education camps,” Wright said, adding that the real power of the church is that if these members were freed by force of law enforcement, they would tell investigators, “It’s all sunshine and seashells. We’re doing it for our own good.”

Wright also challenged celebrity Scientologists, such as Tom Cruise, to re-examine what he describes as the more problematic aspects of the faith.

The church hammered Wright and his book in a statement. “Mr. Wright ignored the real story of Scientology in favor of stale allegations and ever-changing bizarre tales invented by a handful of confessed liars consumed with their media smear campaign,” the statement reads, in part.

The Super Bowl Scientology spot caught many online by surprise. Twitter exploded with a range of reaction, from surprise to ridicule. Comedian Bill Maher tweeted, “I saw ad for scientology, i joined, and then Destiny’s Child reunited! That [expletive] works – thanks, Tom Cruise!”

The South Carolina Republican delivered that assertion, during Wednesday’s Senate judiciary committee hearing on gun violence in America while challenging the notion Congress should regulate the size of firearm magazines.

Graham cited a question that came during the Google Hangout his “good friend” and vice president Joe Biden held last week on the topic of guns. “What if there’s an earthquake out here and there’s a lawless situation,” Graham said, inaccurately paraphrasing the question from video blogger Philip DeFranco.

Graham then invoked the six days of racially charged rioting that followed the Rodney King verdict and resulted in 53 deaths, thousands of arrests, and ultimately a military presence on the streets to restore calm.

“In 1992 you had the riots in Los Angeles, I think it was the King event, but you could find yourself in this country in a lawless environment through a natural disaster or a riot,” Graham said, making his own jump from earthquake to race riot.

“And the story was about a place called Koreatown,” the Senator said. “There were marauding gangs going through the area, burning stores, looting and robbing,” he continued, with a pause, “and raping.”

Evidence of “marauding gangs” who were “raping” the women of Koreatown is hard to find—and may not exist at all. Two scholars who have written extensively on the Los Angeles riots, which marked a 20-year anniversary in 2012, characterized Graham’s imagery as “unfounded hyperbole” and “political theater.”

To Graham, however, this violent moment in American history 2400 miles away from South Carolina, requires big at-home firepower.

“And the vice president said, in response to—that’s why I want my AR-15 [again, an inaccurate characterization of DeFranco’s question]—he said no, you would be better off with a 12-guage shotgun. Well, that’s his opinion, and I respect it.”

Of course, he also disagrees with it.

“I have an AR-15 at home and I haven’t hurt anybody and I don’t intend to use it,” he flexed. “But I think I would be better off protecting my business or my family if there was law and order breakdown in my community, people roaming around my neighborhood to have the AR-15, and I don’t think that makes me an unreasonable person.”

The political motivation of Graham’s casual description of “marauding gangs” of rapists was further exposed in his strident defense of gun advocate Gayle Trotter, who called the AR-15 the weapon of choice for “millions” of American women and testified that women need high capacity weapons to protect themselves and their children.

“When you start telling me that I’m unreasonable for wanting that women to have more than six bullets, or to have an AR-15 with people roaming around my neighborhood, I reject the concept,” he said.

“We need to do something to motivate these parents to see how important an education is, and unfortunately, the only tool we have left is this cash payment that we make to these families,” Republican State Sen. Stacey Campfield told Martin Bashir. (A portion of the interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast and the full version is below.)

The proposal would reduce temporary financial assistance payments to qualifying families by 30% if children fail to achieve certain academic standards. Bashir repeatedly asked the Republican lawmaker to justify the logic behind a plan that would place a family’s well-being on the shoulders of a child already at a socioeconomic disadvantage. “How is a child of age five supposed to carry that burden for the family’s finances when the child has no control over the circumstances in which it’s living?”

Campfield, who called “family” the most important leg in a three-legged education stool, cited “40 countries” where similar systems have worked and stressed that he is not setting the academic bar very high. It is unclear what countries he is including in that count.

“Like I said, I don’t want these kids to be rocket scientists,” Campfield said. “I don’t want them to split the atom. Listen, passing a grade is not too high a standard. To say, ‘Listen, if your kid shows up at school at 11 o’clock in your pajamas, that kid is not ready for school.’ Families have to take a responsibility for having the kids prepared to go to school.”

“These children that you’re targeting are often already victims of neglect,” Bashir argued. “They’ve often been the subject of abuse within their own households; they have no control whatsoever over the circumstances in which they live,” he said. “How is the five-year-old child supposed to perform even at the bare minimum that you expect and if the child doesn’t, you penalize the child?”

Campfield was resolute, acknowledging that some poor students may come from difficult circumstances but insisting the prospect of a financial penalty could possibly protect the student from further abuse.

“If you’re a bad parent who’s abusing the child, guess what, that child is going to do badly,” he said. “I would hope that they’re not going to abuse the child so the child would do better and then the payments wouldn’t be cut.”

Bashir also challenged the implication that teachers would be willing to mark students down with the knowledge that a poor grade might result in deeper poverty for a family.

“Is it going to be perfect, is every child going to be saved? No” Campfield said, before adding, “The give-a-man-a-fish system is not working.”

Campfield bristled when Bashir asked if he had children. “I have about as many children as Barack Obama has guns. So no,” he said. “Yet he still brings legislation regarding that. I have no problem with that. He has a right to do that just like I have a right to do this to have kids.”

Before the interview ended, Campfield–who pushed a failed “don’t say gay” in schools bill in Tennessee– was also asked about a pair of controversial statements he has made about homosexuality: comparing homosexuality and bestiality; and suggesting that the origin of AIDS may have been sexual intercourse between a monkey and a human. He stood by both comments.

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“I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence,” he told The New Republic in a new interview. “In some cases, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won’t have to examine our consciences quite as much.”

The president went on to express greater concern for the NCAA’s college players, young athletes who lack the legal protection of a players’ union and the compensation the pros collect to risk repeated trauma to their bodies and brains.

The president’s assessment comes as an expected 100 million Americans gear up for Super Bowl XLVII–a battle between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans, where there is a reasonable chance you’ll see at least one player suffer a concussion. Repeated brain trauma–and the resulting condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE–is a potential health crisis facing commissioner Roger Goodell and the wealthy NFL, the most popular sport in America.

Already, a class action lawsuit aimed at the league includes thousands of former NFL players and their families. Last week, the family of linebacker Junior Seau–who killed himself in May–filed their own suit blaming the league for failing to protect the athlete from dangerous hits to his head.

Cases of depression, dementia, and a rash of other former player suicides have put the league in a tricky position: how to acknowledge the problem and work to protect players without watering down the league’s hard-hitting excitement.

One player who will appear on the field Sunday, Ravens safety Bernard Pollard, told CBSSports.com that he doesn’t believe the NFL will exist in 30 years because of these competing pressures.

Brain trauma in the NFL has been a continuing topic for Martin Bashir. When Robert Griffin III had his high-profile ACL and MCL tears, Martin argued that it is the athlete’s head, not his knee, that the young athlete’s fans should be most concerned about.

Tell us what you think about the future of football.

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