Greg hears “Let them eat cake,” while a reader shares thoughts on the “First Playground”:

Just an observation: If a Republican President had put in such a thing for his children, ABC/CBS/NBC, et. al. would have had stories all over the news last night juxtaposing pictures of the First Family admiring the new playground and poor children in the snow, holding on to their mother’s hand, standing in line outside the unemployment office and decrying a President out of touch with the suffering of “regular Americans.”

Regular Americans with no Toasted Saffron Couscous Pearls! (Strange capitalization in that ABC report, no?)

I’m all for poking fun at the silly ways of the New Class, with their fair-trade soy lattes and Portuguese water dogs. And especially their unbearable food: couscous pearls? But on the other hand, what do we expect to serve guests at the White House? Papa John’s and PBR? True, it isn’t cottage cheese and ketchup, but whatever sustenance gets Obama through the day, including the cigarettes, seems reasonable to me. (I hope he has a cocktail with his cigarette.) Nobody should begrudge the Obama girls a swing set — but of course what the reader is pointing out here is the media hypocrisy, which is a dead-on observation.

There is, however, a blaze of ugly populism out there. If Obama gets scorched by it, he’ll have nobody to blame but himself, starting with his demogogic attacks on relatively modest bonuses for non-fatcat investment-industry workers, even at firms that are not taking government money. Somebody is bound to ask: If car executives taking taxpayer money shouldn’t have their executives fly in private jets, why should government executives, who do nothing but take taxpayer money, fly in private jets? If a banker who isn’t taking government money shouldn’t get a bonus, why should D. C. drones who do nothing but take government money get raises? There is a certain strain of bitter populism in America that makes people want to see nothing but ashes and sackcloth on the high and mighty (even the nigh high and slightly mighty), and hate unusual levels of success. It’s based on resentment, and it should be resisted. (You know what drives populist liberals crazy about Rush Limbaugh? The cigars and airplanes, the mansion, and his refusal for feel guilty about them. In a word, envy.)

Which is a long way of saying that we should resist Obama for his bad ideas and zany policy initiatives rather than deploy the tired media cliche of the politician “out of touch with Regular Americans.” How could he possibly not be out of touch with Regular Americans? The presidency is more or less optimally designed to keep presidents out of touch with Regular Americans. The current populist mood is potentially dangerous, and conservatives would do well to resist the temptation to encourage it for short-term gain.