O’s true Gulf goof - NYPOST.com

O’s true Gulf goof - NYPOST.com

As criticism of his handling of the Gulf oil spill rises, and his poll numbers tumble, President Obama is headed back to the region tomorrow for yet another inspection tour.

This, as his administration wants to force BP to spend billions more than it’s already paying out.

Obama told congressional leaders that the embattled company should compensate “the people in the Gulf — the fishermen, the hotel owners, families who are dependent for their livelihoods in the Gulf — [so] that they are all made whole.”

It’s a bizarre notion, and probably legally unsustainable — but no more bizarre than the way that Obama has handled the crisis all along. Until the spill, Obama espoused a balanced, forward-looking energy policy that would have stood him well had he approached the disaster as a policy crisis rather than a political problem.

Even a month into the calamity, Obama reiterated that “domestic oil production is an important part of our overall energy strategy.” Here, he could have noted that major accidents are inevitable in an economy as heavily dependent on oil as America’s; added that the task at hand was urgent, but technical — and that there would be plenty of time to hunt for the usual suspects after the well had been capped.

Calm and cool, in other words.

America would have responded in kind.

But first he hesitated, and now he’s flailing — as polls show seven of 10 Americans disapprove of his handling of the matter.

By declaring that he’s looking to see “whose ass I should kick,” the president is effectively admitting that he is both clueless as to what happened, and devoid of a solution apart from a bit of thuggery.

It’s not a confidence-builder.

Certainly his demonizing of BP is causing serious anger across the Atlantic. The company is one of the largest in England — and a staple of that country’s pension-fund investments. At home, Obama is sticking by the drilling moratorium he imposed after the accident — even though officials from the region like Sen.

Mary Landrieu (D-La.) warn that it’s inflicting grave hardship.

Indeed, a panel of experts whose views were used to justify the moratorium now claim that their position was misrepresented by the White House and they actually oppose any ban on drilling.

“We do not believe that punishing the innocent is the right thing to do,” they wrote. “We encourage the secretary of Interior to overcome emotion with logic.”

That’s not likely to happen — because emotion now rules the day when it comes to the BP spill.

But no one has ever suggested grounding the entire airline industry after an airplane crash.

The US economy needs a robust energy sector if it is to recover. And that won’t be had through political posturing.

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