Saakashvili did cozy up to Bush.
However it's a complete oversimplification. Saakashvili has a specific grift that appeals mainly to Eastern European liberals. The anti-corruption guy (who is actually corrupt). Similar examples are Poroshenko. Saakashvili enriched himself in plenty of ways in Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine he was stripped of citizenship and deported by Porosh because they're the same guy and Saakashvili stepped out of line and tried to use their only weapon against Porosh. Most of these guys if they actually do anything about corruption is they'll do cleanups of petty corruption mostly by forcing a party line on local bureaucrats to stop trading favors.
Saakashvili's grift is practically only possible due to the existence of USAID money that creates anti-corruption organizations that will never actually accomplish their goals in Eastern European countries. The problem with these orgs is that they fall into 3 broad flavors, anti-corruption corruption guys (Saakashvili had his own org like this), true believers, and political wreckers. Ironically it's impossible to tell the difference between the 3 on tactics alone because the tactics are the same. A common example is in Ukraine most of these orgs are against sourcing laws. Sourcing laws are a normal thing for most capitalist countries to have to bouy their local economies, where a % of the government's spend on government functions has to purchase goods/services from the country itself. The anti-corruption NGO party line on sourcing laws in Ukraine is that it will allow self-dealing / unfair dealing/ corruption via grants or bidding processes.
Ukraine and Georgia have a history of trading corrupt guys back and forth across the border. The guy who Saakashvili imprisoned on corruption charges that lead to the 2007 riots and his abdication also went back and forth between Georgia and Ukraine in a political capacity. Unlike Saakashvili, Okruashvili joined the Ukraine defense forces against Russia.
Survival is a land of contrasts.