So when Bush made his second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah in search of ways to ease the pain for American motorists from soaring gasoline costs, the Saudis told him there’s plenty of oil already available. The additional 3,00,000 barrels — bringing Saudi Arabian production to 9.4 million barrels a day — was simply to meet customer needs in June, officials explained.

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi scolded those “who are questioning our oil practices and policies.” Saudi officials also have reminded US officials that they are increasing their capacity to produce more oil, now about 11.8 million barrels a day, but of course that does not bring any more actual oil onto the market.

Bush may not have agreed, but despite his close personal relationship with King Abdullah, he was not going to getting anything close to what he sought. For the Saudis, this is pure business.

Eight years ago when Bush was running for president and the Clinton administration was trying to pry more oil out of OPEC, the future president said that as a former oilman he would “jawbone” the producers and get them to “open their spigots.”

Bill Richardson, now the governor of New Mexico and then US energy secretary, says he jawboned as best he could and “on several occasions they increased production and the price actually went down.”

“They hated to see me coming, but they listened,” said Richardson, adding that the Saudis and other OPEC countries “aren’t terribly concerned about high prices.” While Bush promised he would jawbone, said Richardson, “he never did it. ... He never jawbones.”