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Obama: I’m responsible (for zilch)

It was yet another performance of the “full responsibility” flimflam.

In a rare appearance before his adoring fans in the press corps yesterday, President Obama repeatedly took “full responsibility” for the blundering efforts to clog up the geyser of crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico coating everything in sight.

At the same time, Obama repeatedly denied that his administration was complicit in allowing the catastrophe to happen in the first place, slow to realize the devastating nature of it, or ham-handed in the five-week effort to try to stem the toxic tide.

In other words, Obama — as he often does — took “full responsibility” for being awesome.

He took “full responsibility” for being, well, nearly perfect.

From the first day, Obama said it has been his “highest priority” and that his administration has been “singularly focused” on the leak.

“Those who think that we were either slow on our response or lacked urgency don’t know the facts,” he sniffed.

Again and again, Obama disputed charges made by people on the ground that his administration has bollixed things up pretty badly.

Realizing that even his biggest, hand-picked fan club couldn’t swallow what he was peddling, Obama came up with a question of his own that he was a little more comfortable answering.

“If the question is, are we doing everything perfectly out there, then the answer is ‘No.’ We could always do better,” he said, bearing his trademark modesty.

Sure, the government has been “scandalously close” to the oil companies, but that was his predecessor’s fault.

Finally relenting, Obama found one area where perhaps their efforts “fell short.”

But even that was actually BP’s fault for not being “fully forthcoming” about the extent of the spill.

This is not taking “full responsibility.” It’s called claiming to take responsibility, but without any of those pesky consequences.

It is the Obama way.

churt@nypost.com