It's not often that the antics of Sen. Judd Gregg remind you of Julia Roberts - it's not often that Judd Gregg engages in antics of any sort - but remember that corny 1999 movie called Runaway Bride? You know the one: Roberts gets the guy, gets the dress, plans the ceremony, draws a crowd of well-wishers and then, just before her big moment, bolts the wedding in dramatic fashion. She embarrasses herself and her suitor, leaving friends and acquaintances scratching their heads in shock and amusement and worry.

Roberts and Gregg leave onlookers with the same simple question: What in the world was that all about?

Gregg announced Thursday that he wouldn't be President Obama's nominee for commerce secretary after all. Turns out, he said, he and Obama don't see eye-to-eye on some big issues. Turns out, he's not comfortable carrying water for a president whose policies he can't support 100 percent.

Really? At 61, Gregg is just having this epiphany? After nearly three terms in the Senate? After 30 years of partisan politicking?

Is it possible that Gregg didn't really understand where Obama was headed? Is it possible that the two men hadn't discussed in detail what Gregg's role would (and wouldn't) be? And why the sudden disinterest in running for a fourth term, just weeks after assuring New Hampshire that he would?

Is it possible we're not getting the full story here?

Gregg's announcement came on the day Obama and the rest of the country were celebrating Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Lincoln is a favorite of Obama, and he appears eager to follow Abe's "team of rivals" approach to Cabinet-making. See, Obama seemed to be saying with the Gregg nomination, I want to hear from all sorts of smart guys, regardless of their politics - there's even room for a taciturn, partisan fiscal hawk like Gregg, believe it or not.

In changing his mind barely a week after publicly accepting the nomination, Gregg surely humiliated the president whose administration he had hoped to join and whose Cabinet has already been hobbled by a series of embarrassing revelations. He made life unnecessarily trying for Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who had agreed to replace Gregg in the Senate with a Republican, angering some in his own party for naught. He dashed the brief hopes of Bonnie Newman, who was as surprised as anyone to find herself in line for a two-year gig in the U.S. Senate. He turned newly elected Jeanne Shaheen back into the junior senator from New Hampshire.

Most strangely, though, Gregg has turned the end of his long, successful career in politics into a mysterious spectacle.

In Runaway Bride, Julia Roberts ultimately comes to her senses, marries Richard Gere, and leaves her audience feeling relieved and content.

The Gregg saga ends differently, of course, but his public divorce from the Obama administration may eventually leave New Hampshire voters feeling the same way. The Gregg-Obama marriage was so unlikely from the get-go that this recent development may just signal that all is again right with the world.