A word about "elites"

I was at a talk this morning that the New America Foundation and the British Council were holding with the Transatlantic Network 2020 and the British Foreign Secretary (their Secretary of State). At some point we got around to discussing "elites." It's a word that came up a lot in the conversation with regards to there being a supposed problem with government elites around the world not communicating with and representing the masses.

The night before, at a dinner with the same group (sans the hot foreign secretary), a conservative at the table made the point that the majority of American voters would never support the Kyoto Protocol if permitted to vote on it directly (the agreement limiting carbon dioxide emissions in order to rein in global warming - Bush pulled the US out of the agreement at the beginning of his first term). The conservative's point was that "elites" in Washington and around the world negotiated the agreement and are trying to impose it on "real people," and that somehow this was a bad thing. It got me playing devil's advocate and asking myself, and the crowd this morning, whether, for example, we really want the people of West Virginia (or Illinois, or California for that matter) directly deciding on the merits of individual treaties. With all due respect to our fellow citizens, two-thirds of young people aged 18-24 can't even find Iraq on a map, and 50% can't find New York state. I'm gonna wager a bet that their parents aren't any brighter. (In fact, they're not.)

The Republicans like to pretend that they're for the regular guy, unless of course the regular guy opposes their tax cuts for the wealthy, their wars of convenience, or pretty much anything else Republicans have done over the past eight years. Then, Republicans are much less in favor of letting the people decide anything. But putting their hypocrisy aside, at what point is public opinion wise and at what point is it woefully ignorant. And how should a leader, an elite, know when to follow public opinion and when to, well, lead in spite of it?