. Even among his friends, Jeb is known to keep a certain elevated distance. In fact it's debatable whether he has any real friends—if he does, they're hard to find. While I was reporting this story, Jeb's office gave me the names of two "close friends" to speak with, both of whom, it turned out, did not consider themselves close to Jeb at all but, rather, business associates. When those "friends" gave me the names of other people they believed were close to Jeb, those people told the same story. After a while, it became difficult to shake the suspicion that "close" is a relative term with Jeb.
