Bush wanted what some Permian Basin diehards called the "Elephant Field" and Bush called "The Liberator," the big mother lode. Bush spent some time trying to convince the trustees of one of the fabled ranches in Texas, the 500,000-acre Waggoner Ranch near Wichita Falls, to let his two-man operation explore for oil there....

But the project was simply too large for him, and it was like putting a steel cap on a dream. Owen knew that it was too big and Bush was "extremely" disappointed at losing the "big company maker, a home run" ....

"We never found that huge liberator," is what Bush once said to a Dallas writer.

--Bill Minutaglio, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty, p. 201

By now, there's a narrative of the months leading up to 9/11 that both Condoleezza Rice and Richard Clarke could agree on: Bush, tired of "swatting flies," wanted a big, comprehensive strategy against jihadist terror. As of 9/11, it still wasn't in place.

And we all know the narrative of the "war on terror": Rather than limiting his focus to Al Qaeda and its allies, Bush embraced the grand neocon strategy of trying to remake the entire Middle East in America's image and got stuck in Iraq.

When he was an oilman, Bush tried for the big score -- and couldn't figure out that it was beyond his capabilities.

Now that he's president, he's doing the same thing -- and getting the same result. Only this time it's not rich friends' money that's at stakes -- it's lives. Yet he still can't put aside his dream of a massive victory and focus on what actually needs to be done.