Detroit Finances-Emergency Manager.JPG

Washington-based bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr speaks at a news conference after being named as by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder last month as Detroitas emergency manager.

(AP file photo)

Update:

The information about Kevyn Orr's food expenses was based on a report from Detroit TV station WDIV. William Nowling, spokesman for Kevyn Orr, says: "Kevyn Orr does not expense room service charges; he pays for it with his own money and at his own expense."

As Detroit burns, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr

.

That's interesting, because as we all know, the state's largest city is broke.

So broke that Christie's auction house paid a visit last month to check out what to plunder from the Detroit Institute of Arts. So broke that private companies must take over essential city services.

So broke that city employees who spent their lives paying into their

have been told it would be greedy to expect anything in their dotage.

But for Kevyn Orr, it's a case of, "Do what I say, not as I do."

In addition to the

, he's also pulling in a $275,000 annual salary. And two others on his team, former Detroit City Councilman Gary Brown and Police Chief James Craig, take home a cool $225,000 a year.

Not to mention the princely fee of up to

-- which is, wholly coincidentally, the law firm Orr previously worked for -- draws for its work for Detroit.

So where's the outrage, like

? Where's anti-tax crusader Leon Drolet, who memorably

when the state was in dire straits in 2009?

Alas, all the outrage seems reserved for the abstract concept of Detroit. And as

, many people inside and outside Michigan have decided Detroit deserves whatever it gets.

There's little empathy for the 700,000 residents who are paying the price, as

and emails I received will attest, including an indignant response from a yacht company owner who perhaps is riled up that Detroiters aren't buying his boats to flee from the city.

But it's precisely that attitude that allows Kevyn Orr, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, to continue to waste taxpayer dollars while browbeating others for doing so. It's the attitude that some people are just so amazingly smart and skilled and deserve to live like kings, while the rest of the plebeians deserve to suffer.

It's the culture of entitlement.

If you want to see the roots of it in the Snyder era, check out business magnate Keith Crain's nauseating 2010 column,

Candidate debates are not among our rights." Crain has the gall to argue that voters didn't have the "God-given right" to hear Snyder, his chosen candidate, answer a few basic questions, essentially because following a corporate-style messaging strategy trumps democracy.

That kind of fealty to power has no place in the media. Unfortunately, there are some members more concerned with being invited to the right parties than following H.L. Mencken's credo of "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted."

Anyone who doubts this only needs to check out

by Mark Leibovich skewering the chummy D.C. media culture.

To see the local, less-high-stakes version, go to Troppo, a restaurant a block from the state Capitol, on any given night.

Since Snyder became state CEO (after one measly debate), he's continued following a corporate playbook that has probably made Crain proud. He's used his private

to pay at least one high-level staffer,

"Transformation Manager" Rich Baird.

You can't have it both ways. But some people apparently believe they're above the law.

That's not how democratic government is supposed to work, of course. But it seems time to ask the question: Do Rick Snyder and his allies have that much use for it? After all, when you're working in "dog years," as the guv likes to say, it's a lot easier to get things done when you don't have to count votes (see

and the new Detroit-Windsor Bridge).

And remember when Snyder in 2011 proposed unfettered schools of choice, meaning Detroit students could start pouring into West Bloomfield and Troy? Lawmakers balked and the idea died. So Skunk Works, a best-and-the-brightest group of business types and Snyder allies, was born to tackle education reform, away from the harsh sunlight of the Legislature and the public.

So I doubt Snyder or his chums would blanch over the Detroit EM doing his best Marie Antoinette impression.

For those comfortable with a select group of super-special people running everything with virtually unchecked power, Orr's crab-cake habit makes a lot of sense.

After all, dismantling one of the world's greatest cities, piece by piece, is exhausting work.

Susan J. Demas is a political analyst and an award-winning journalist. She can be reached at sjdemas@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter here.