Graham called sequestration irresponsible and the byproduct of a political system that bucks hard choices. He had tough words for his own party too, accusing House Republicans of using budgetary tricks to make their sequester replacement plan work, and chastising Senate Republicans for not presenting a plan of their own.

"We're the party of fiscal conservatism. Have we put together a plan to cut $20 billion between March and October?" Graham said. "No, the House passed a plan to substitute sequestration. The Senate Republicans have yet to offer a plan. ... But the House used savings outside of the 2013 window. If you think this is that easy, I challenge any member of Congress to come up with a proposal to cut $85 billion out of the federal budget between March 1st and Oct. 1st."

But Graham's most remarkable words came when he was asked about an alternate plan, floated by Senate Republicans, to grant President Barack Obama greater authority to target the $85 billion in cuts slated for this year.

"We'll criticize everything he does," Graham acknowledged. "We'll say, 'Mr. President, it is now up to you to find this $85 billion in savings and we'll say it’s to make it easier for you.' But every decision he’ll make, we'll criticize."

Fox & Friends might want to rethink their delighted confidence that the popularity of ‘Downton Abbey,’ the PBS hit about dressing for dinner, shows our high esteem for job creators and our aspirational awe of the rich.

In a refreshing departure from recent stereotyping of the wealthy as evil fat cats, Fox’s Stuart Varney has argued, Downton’s aristocrats are “very nice people.” In fact, “the entire town loves the rich guy who lives in the abbey,” agreed Steve Doocy. Because according to Varney, his lordship and his family “create jobs, for heaven’s sake. They’re classy; they’ve got style. And we love them. That show is wildly popular; it poses a threat to the left, doesn’t it?”

Well, no, and not only because by that logic, I guess we also revere the Baltimore drug dealers, New Jersey mobsters and Albuquerque meth cooks who have been big hits, too, with the American public. Some conservatives determinedly ignored the recent inaugural festivities in favor of Downton marathons. But aren’t they increasingly suspicious that the show’s creator and writer, Julian Fellowes, is not exactly arguing against the ‘death tax’?

This last week’s episode certainly erased any doubt that the show’s paterfamilias, Lord Grantham, has even a lick of sense: Already, we knew he’d mismanaged the place, sunk his wealthy wife’s entire fortune into a railroad to nowhere, and proven himself a terrible judge of character, trusting even the most transparently venal of his servants.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/01/29/the-politics-of-downton-abbey-down-with-the-patriarchy/