President Obama often makes a show of his disdain for the crude cynicism of less polished politicians. It's usually a signal he's about to outdo them.

He demonstrated the technique in his radio address last Saturday, which was devoted to placating the public's ill temper over rising gas prices. Adopting the attitude he reserves for such occasions, an elegant mix of nonchalance and paternal lecture, the president scorned "politicians . . . racing to the cameras, waving three point plans for two-dollar gas. But when prices subside, those plans are quietly shelved."

What grown-up alternative, then, do the president and congressional Democrats propose as preferable to Republicans' phony posturing? Eliminating tax loopholes and subsidies for the oil companies, of course; the pandering they usually resort to when pain at the pump is causing them pain in the polls.

In his defense, Obama does grasp the main causes of the recent spike in gas prices: increasing global demand and political instability in the Middle East, to name the two most obvious. And he has discussed, if not yet earnestly pursued, his aspirations to enact an energy policy that would, over considerable time, reduce America's reliance on fossil fuels.

But if you were just examining recent press releases and interviews, you might get the mistaken impression that punishing oil companies was the principle plank in the Democrats' energy platform. And while there might be good reasons to eliminate the oil industry's special treatment in the federal budget and tax code, it's impact on the cost of gasoline is not among them. That's because it would increase gas prices not lower them. I believe it's still an immutable law of free market economies that if the costs of producing and selling a commodity increase, the price charged customers will as well.

How does the president manage to skate his pandering so easily past the press, at least when compared to the treatment reporters dole out to other politicians? I guess the simple answer is he's better at it. His professed disdain for demagoguery is beguiling. His aspirations sound so lofty that ignoble political tactics used to pursue them are ignored. His political performances are so artful that crassness seems the very last adjective you would use to describe them. He can harrangue with the worst of them. But he manages to convey it with an effective oxymoron: enlightened demagoguery.