Opinion

Obama’s intentions

President Obama’s Oval Office speech last night focused on the Gulf oil catastrophe, but its true purpose was impossible to miss: shoring up the president’s tanking popularity.

Some 57 days after the BP oil rig blew — triggering an underwater oil gusher that’s yet to be contained — a majority of Americans, polls show, think Obama’s been too detached from the crisis.

Thus, the president is taking a new tack: huffing and puffing.

“Tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens,” he said.

But unless Obama knows something no one else does, it’s not an assault, but a catastrophic accident — though the term does build on a theme he began Sunday by comparing the spill to 9/11.

And that was a grotesquerie: As New Yorkers know best, the attack that day was a premedi tated act of war.

Equally off-base is his new approach to the spill: demonizing BP beyond reason.

“Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness,” Obama continued.

Really?

Under what legal authority?

Due process? Rule of law?

Never mind any of that.

Never mind, in fact, that nobody yet knows what caused the April disaster — let alone who’s to blame.

Obama admitted as much last night: “And so I have established a national commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.”

So where is the fact base from which the administration intends to proceed?

Facts, of course, are rarely relevant when Chicago-style “community organizing” is under way. Threats are so much more effective.

This isn’t to suggest that BP doesn’t bear heavy responsibility here. It was a BP operation gone wrong, and it’s certainly wise to safeguard funds for when liability ultimately is assessed.

But there’s a difference between looking after one’s legal options and whipping up a mob — that being the difference between justice and revenge.

The securities-rating firm Fitch yesterday dropped BP’s credit rating six notches, two above junk, and the company has lost about half its market value since the explosion.

Given that the White House is relying on BP to stem the leak and lead the cleanup, driving the company into bankruptcy now doesn’t seem like a sound strategy.

Unless, again, puffing up presidential popularity is the strategy.