Florida’s gain, America’s loss?

That whooshing sound the rest of the country is hearing is the collective sigh of relief from Florida, upon receiving the joyous news that Jeb Bush will not be running for the Senate in 2010.

According to self-proclaimed insiders, Jeb did a mental calculus and decided not to try to succeed one-term Sen. Mel Martinez because a) his family needs him too much, b) he enjoys being the decider, not a team player, and c) he’s making crazy money in the private sector.

The mere idea that Jeb might throw his hat in the ring “froze the field” on both sides, according to former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who was and is thinking of vying for the office himself.

Such speculation also fueled a round of Jeb-Love, starting with the arrogant asshole’s father, George H.W., who thinks his son is suited to the family calling. No, I’m not talking about screwing things up, I’m talking about the Bushes’ other calling — being president.

Why everyone thinks Jeb is the smart one or the capable one is beyond me. Let’s take a look at Jeb’s illustrious life.

• Family: Wife Columba was fined by U.S. Customs when she attempted to smuggle $19,000 in clothing and jewelry purchased in Paris; daughter Noelle was arrested for forging prescriptions for Xanax and while serving court-appointed rehab was discovered with cocaine; son George P. broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house in the wee hours and after arguing with her father (who called police), returned 20 minutes later and tore doughnuts in their front lawn with his Ford Explorer; and son Jeb Jr. and an unknown female were discovered by police in the parking lot of a Tallahassee mall having sex in the back seat of his Jeep Cherokee. Like former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Junior had removed his pants but continued to wear his socks.
• Governing — As chief executive of Florida, Jeb engineered a massive effort to dismantle government and replace as many positions as possible that were previously subject to public oversight and civil service fairness with privatized no-bid crony contracting. His biggest campaign was to destroy public education by instituting the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (F-CAT), which he used to punish schools that served disadvantaged students and siphon off taxpayer dollars to private schools (themselves exempt from the F-CAT) through his voucher system. Courts rejected the use of public funding for private and religious schools, but the state’s education system continues to be browbeaten by standardized testing.
• Business — Jeb was in real estate speculation before, during, and after serving as governor and was of the developer ilk that destroyed Florida’s environment and wrecked its economy. He also pioneered the practice of accepting lucrative board positions on companies that subsequently toppled from mismanagement, including his early $50,000 membership on the board of Ideon, which went down in a cloud of stock manipulation and fraud in 1998. More recently, Jeb contracted as a private equity adviser to the infamous Lehman Brothers, which sold a portfolio of defaulted debt to Florida as part of state workers’ retirement pensions while Jeb was governor.

Jeb is no different from W., having used his family connections to get where he is yet somehow believing himself specially gifted. Bush’s father and Republican operatives look upon Jeb’s history of spectacular failure and say, “Hmmm. Smells like presidential material!”

So Florida is, for today, happy to be sparred the black cloud of further Bush governance. The question is, did Jeb pass on the Senate so he can gird himself for what he really wants — his big brother’s job? We can only shudder and wait to find out. A Jeb/Palin ticket in 2012 is every Republicans’ wet dream.