If You Can't Say Anything Nice.....

...you shouldn't say anything at all.

Especially if you are the chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

Jacksonville businessman Tom Slade built a reputation in the 1990s as one of the key architects of the Republican political dominance in Florida, and one of the most important political allies of Gov. Jeb Bush.

Slade, chairman of the state Republican Party from 1993 to 1999, said often that getting Bush elected governor was his overriding goal in politics, and he was one of many who speculated on Bush as a possible presidential candidate.

But Slade's view on that may have changed.

In an interview in January, Slade said Bush "does not have the maturity ... and wisdom" to be president, and that Bush's administration has been marked by a "dictatorial" style and reluctance to take advice. That, he said, could prove a problem for the Republican Party in the future.

He said Jeb Bush and his brother President Bush "are arrogant as hell."

oops...

Slade, 69, now working as a lobbyist in Tallahassee, said he didn't know that his often- blunt comments would be printed in a newspaper, and objected to the story.

Paulson "represented to me that he was fishing around to write a book down the road somewhere, and that was the basis on which I agreed to sit down and talk with him," Slade said.

"I was probably more open than I would have been had I had any idea that this was going to be subject to a newspaper review."

TBO via Interstate4Jamming