Newly elected D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has found a new Best Friend Forever and symbol that he's a serious guy in Mike Bloomberg, who for his part has a great new prop for his ongoing play at (or about his) ascension to the title of America's Mayor. Bloomberg's spent a fair amount of his second term on a magical mystery/victory tour, traveling to other cities to advise young new mayors and implicitly cast himself as their spiritual or at least managerial forbearer. Just what his victory is, though, is a mystery, as the Fenty trip makes clear. For that matter, Fenty doesn't yet seem to be bringing much to the table, though it is a credit to his political horse sense that he's associating himself with an accepted winner, even if no one's quite sure just what Bloomberg has accomplished.

What's remarkable is how little substance either mayor demonstrated in a meeting that seemed largely focused on the bullpen layout for city hall, which was compared to some (mythical) newsroom where open space means information is freely shared. To be fair, they also discussed Bloomberg's successful bid for mayoral control of New York City's schools.

Still, both men got their fair end of the deal. Fenty called Bloomberg the “standard-bearer” and said “we’ve learned a lot from him.” And Bloomberg said of Fenty that "I predict great things… I think this mayor is a breath of fresh air for Washington." the problem is that Fenty seems to be not simply basking in reflected glory, but mistaking that glory for substance. in a TV interview Tuesday night, it seemed clear that Fenty has swallowed Bloomberg's unsubstantiated claims of educational success whole without bothering to have examined the incontestably unimpressive numbers. Washingtonians should hope he'll cast a more critical eye on his own budget numbers.