THE "WE'RE UNWORTHY OF BUSH" MEME

There was a lot of chortling on Wednesday about a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro that said Americans weren't worthy of George W. Bush's greatness:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace.... He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House....

But apparently that was just the first in a series of public pronouncements intended to create a meme. Here's Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter, in today's Washington Post:

...[Bush's] achievements, it is true, have limited constituencies to praise them. Many conservatives view Medicare, education reform and foreign assistance as heresies. Many liberals refuse to concede Bush's humanity, much less his achievements.

But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends....

So Shapiro's op-ed wasn't an anomaly. This is a talking point emanating from Bushworld.

It's an odd talking point. You'd think the most loathed president in history would (through his mouthpieces) show a bit of humility in an attempt to restore his reputation.

But that's clearly not how Bushies see the world. As they see it, Bush is big -- it's America that got small.