I’m not a bettor, but I’ll wager this: We aren’t going to have a “heck of a job, Brownie” moment as President Obama looks for a way to stop that huge oil spill off the Louisiana coast.

Brownie, of course, is the former Federal Emergency Management Agency head, Michael Brown, who drew high praise from President Bush — while he was making a mess of the recovery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s savage attack in August 2005 on the Gulf Coast.

The president’s comments have drawn widespread scorn ever since he uttered them. Brown quit his FEMA job and New Orleans — which suffered the brunt of Katrina’s fury — hasn’t recovered fully yet.

Now a new president is facing a mammoth manmade disaster off the Louisiana coast. Barack Obama generally is more careful with his language than his immediate predecessor. He’ll need to be more than just circumspect, however. He’ll need to pull together all the forces he can, along with the neighboring states and the oil company (British Petroleum) that owns the rig that exploded and collapsed, to stop this ecological catastrophe.

Events such as this make me absolutely certain that the 400 grand we pay the president each year isn’t nearly enough.