In trying to get traction for his presidential bid, Mike Bloomberg makes more of his relationship with Barack Obama than was there.  David Axelrod says the two "certainly weren't best buds."  As if that needed saying.  Obama was Obama's only best bud.  And from what we've been reading about Bloomers, he himself is his only best bud.

To be sure, best budness probably doesn't characterize many presidents or candidates.  The ego necessary to go for that prize just doesn't leave much room for warm relationships apart from spouses.  Still, one feels a human warmth about, say, Donald Trump, that was missing in Barack Obama.  The same was true of George W. Bush as compared to Bill Clinton, even if Bush did later reveal himself to be a RINO.

Underlying the idea of a best bud is the capacity to enjoy others, usually marked by friendliness.  Trump was always popular on his building sites with the guys doing the work — the guys with concrete dust on their arms and sweat rolling down their faces — because he evinced genuine interest in them.  He enjoyed camaraderie with them and knew scores of them by name.

This contrasted sharply with Barack Obama's haughtiness, nose in the air, practiced dismissive gestures, everything for show.  Obama has no best buds because he's incapable of being a best bud.  His famous propensity for making every speech about himself, with repeated use of the first-person singular pronoun, betrays this unpleasant truth.  Not only can he not speak without TOTUS; he cannot speak about anything but Barack.

The unlikable quality of exaggerated self-opinion typifies all the leading Democrats of our era.  Hillary and Bernie and Liz and Kamala and now Mike, on and on, all unlikable, all with exaggerated self-opinions.  That might not matter so much if some humanity were mixed in, a sense of humor or fun or delight in living, some enthusiasm for something besides politics.  But that's precisely what's missing in the Democrat slate of candidates.  None connects personally because none of them can get past himself.

Four miles from my house is the stadium where later today Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Phoenix.  The lines were already long at 6 A.M. for his speech at 7:00 P.M., 13 hours later.  This is a man who not only delivers, but connects personally while doing it.

We Americans, you and I, are his best buds.