Apparently fueled by his natural tendency to petulance, President Obama made a startling admission yesterday. In a careless moment, Obama admitted that he is bluffing House Republicans in the current debt ceiling/cost cutting meetings.

There is no other way to characterize the event.

Before abruptly abandoning the latest negotiations in a fit of pique, the president warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): "Don't call my bluff."

Translation: "I'm bluffing, dammit! I'm not very good at it, OK? But you better give me what I want anyway!"

Richard Kantro adds:

Remember the grand entrance with the columns?  Has his exit now topped it?

He is a Man -- so Lofty his Destiny, so Great his Mind, so Deep his Thoughts -- before whom people his whole life long have bowed, scraped, doffed their hats, and withdrawn with a humble flourish.  Just like the gracious, deferential munchkin servants near the end of the Wizard of Oz.  (Relive the scene here.)  Perhaps he views himself -- how now? -- as a latter-day, tough-love, set-things-right, multiracial Glinda, having descended to earth in his very own Pink Bubble One.  Yet, OMG, we're so prickly and undeserving:  if only we were more obsequious and less obstreperous, his Life would be perfect.

But alas, for all the lifetime perks and yessirs, he's still not had quite enough of his way in destroying the country he detests so much.  Delaminating it through his very own sour amalgam of hubris, dogma, contempt, stupidity, and stilted rote, this tiresome jackanapes now gathers up all his swishing, pursed indignation and whirls away from the people's business in a doubtless devastatingly impressive Grand Exit.  Could they hear him sniff?  Will he be back with a posse?  Was there flash powder?

Maybe there really is no place like home, after all.  When home might be Mombasa, Honolulu, Jakarta, Chicago, or parts unknown, who can say?  At least his mother really was from Kansas -- finally, something authentic, though no Dorothy she -- but there's no danger of his returning there.  The real burning question is:  if you're Obama, and you finally opt out with the triple heel-click, just where do you get sent home to?  Ah, for His Petulancy to conjure himself into L. Frank Obauma for just an hour, and write himself out of our lives!

Richard Kantro may be reached at rk4at@hotmail.com.