Exxon Mobil recently reported the highest quarterly profit ever earned by a U.S. company — $11.7 billion.

A big share of those profits came out of the pockets of Americans struggling to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline.

No wonder consumers are frustrated.

But there’s something that should make Americans even more frustrated. That’s the way so many of our national politicians are pandering to our frustration by attacking oil companies.

It may be an easy shot, but it’s the wrong target.

The victim will be the nation’s future.

Before we proclaim the oil industry’s profits “obscene,” as Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi each did, and before we accept Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to impose a windfall profit tax on Big Oil, we should consider:

The oil industry’s profit margin in the first quarter of this year was 7.6 percent, compared to 25.9 percent for the pharmaceutical and medicine industry, 15.7 percent for chemical companies and 12.1 percent for the electronic equipment industry.

While Exxon, overall, reaped big benefits from the rising price of oil, the company was also in the same position as consumers: It was squeezed by the higher cost of foreign oil.

Profits in Exxon’s refining business were down $1.8 billion from the same period a year ago. The decline occurred because the refineries had to pay so much more for oil than they did a year ago.

Millions of Americans have part of their financial success tied to Exxon because their retirement accounts are invested in the stock of Exxon, the biggest American company, measured by stock market value.

For these investors, Exxon should have made even more money. Exxon’s profit, as big as it was, failed to meet expectations, prompting an immediate 3 percent drop in the company’s stock price.

The U.S. Treasury also benefits from Exxon’s profits. The company’s effective tax rate is 49 percent. It paid nearly $65 billion in taxes from 2003 to 2007, dwarfing the combined total of General Electric and Wal-Mart.

The last time the nation imposed a windfall oil profit tax, in 1980, it turned out to be a costly nightmare. Projected to net $225 billion over 11 years, the tax yielded only $40 billion in eight years.

The Internal Revenue Service spent $15 million a year to collect the tax, and the oil industry spent an estimated $40 million a year to comply with it. The General Accounting Office called it “perhaps the largest and most complex tax ever levied on a U.S. industry.”

Domestic oil production dropped, and dependence on foreign oil increased, while the tax was in effect.

We can be thankful it was repealed in 1988.

Attacking oil companies for making money is a shallow response that diverts attention from the facts.

The world demand for oil has been increasing. The supply is limited. And the United States has failed to develop alternative fuels fast enough or conserve remaining oil supplies well enough.

We need to get to work, and we need leadership — not pandering.

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