The White House has two kinds of aides: the ones who prefer to think of their boss as gifted but human, and the ones who think their boss is on a date night with destiny. The first group thinks that when things go really well for President Barack Obama that he's benefiting from luck as well as skill. For instance, they suggest, if any one of the sharpshooters from the Navy SEALs who killed the three Somali pirates holding the American captain had aimed a millimeter to the left, maybe the captain would have been killed, and the incident would have turned into a symbol of weakness -- as when Jimmy Carter's attempt to free the hostages in Iran ended with a helicopter crash in the desert. And what if there had been another terrorist attack in America? Everything would be seen through a darker lens. The second group of aides are more caught up in the myth and magic, feeling that Obama summons the three-point swishes when he needs them; that his popularity is not so fragile; that the president's unparalleled vision and buzzer-beating will can shape fate. Just so, there are some Americans who think the president got an excess of attention from an excitable news media for expeditiously executing a fly that was buzzing around his face during an interview with CNBC and The New York Times' John Harwood. And there are others who see a mystical, metaphorical dimension to the way the president nonchalantly lasered in on the meddlesome insect after it ignored his admonition, 'Hey, get outta here.' Without even uncrossing his legs or lunging about, the Chill One caught it, crushed it and kicked it aside and then said to Harwood, 'Now, where were we?' before returning to his point about regulatory reform. 'It's like he's got one of those Fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes,' marveled Jon Stewart. Maybe the president who collected Spider-Man comics as a kid couldn't resist the age-old face-off with a fly. The moment had echoes of parables in which the ordinary one becomes the golden one. In 'The Karate Kid,' a teenager whose father has died learns lessons about the body and spirit from his surrogate father and karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi. His lessons are about not going to the dark side, the importance of discipline, and catching flies. 'Man who catch fly with chopstick,' Mr. Miyagi says, 'accomplish anything.' In the Grimms' fairy tale 'The Brave Little Tailor,' a tailor brandishing a rag kills seven flies swarming around his jam-smeared bread. The little man admires his own bravery so much -- 'For joy his heart wagged like a lamb's tail' -- that he wants the whole world to know of it. So he stitches up a belt for himself embroidered with the legend 'Seven at one blow!' and saunters out. Protected by his legend, using brains rather than brawn, he dispatches two giants and captures a unicorn and a wild boar before winning a princess and living happily ever after as a king. The president didn't order up a 'One at one blow!' belt. You don't need such accessories in the era of YouTube viral videos. But he did admire his own ninja moves so much that he gave himself a shout-out: 'That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker.' Then he solicited more snaps for what Harwood called his ''Make my day' moment' from his press secretary off-camera: 'Whaddya think, Gibbs?' After the interview was over, he continued his superfly moves by cleaning up the carcass with a napkin. The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators. The 'shocking murder in the White House,' as Stephen Colbert dubbed it, was a small moment. 'All they want is to be loved and to feed on our waste,' Jeff 'The Fly' Goldblum said in a dry defense of the exoskeletal creatures on the 'Colbert Report.' But at least this moment didn't involve any talking or therapy or charm or compromise or seminars. 'The snuff aspect of it was psychologically useful for Obama,' Harwood told me. 'He decided to take it out, and he did take it out.' If only the president could be so brazen about pushing through gay rights and health care. Harwood was bemused about the serious issues in his interview getting swallowed by a bug. 'It will be the most noticed thing in my career,' he conceded, 'but I'm rolling with it.' 