When Bill Clinton left the Oval Office in 2000, publishing houses scrambled to secure the rights to his memoirs. Rumors began circulating that Knopf Publishing, the company that ultimately inked a deal with the 42^nd President of the United States, had to put up a record $12 million advance to put their logo on Clinton’s book. But the rumors were wrong- the Clintons’ tax returns later showed that Knopf actually had to give him $15 million. “My Life” shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, and stayed there for six weeks, ultimately earning a Grammy for the book-on-tape edition.

Barack Obama hasn’t even become President of the United States yet, and his memoirs, “The Audacity of Hope,” spent 16 weeks at number one, and stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for 30. Like Clinton’s massive text, the audio version ended up winning a Grammy Award.

So it would seem that President George W. Bush, the 43^rd President of the United States, and a man who has changed the face of the world more drastically than perhaps any single man in the last half century, would be rocketing toward a literary gold mine. One would imagine that he’s awash in overtures from hopeful publishers.

But, as it turns out, he’s not. In fact, the same publishers who so vehemently pursued Clinton are telling Bush not to get his hopes up. Knopf publicity chief Paul Bogaards told the AP, “If I were advising President Bush, given how the public feels about him right now, I think patience would probably be something that I would encourage.”

Even conservative publishing houses, like Regency Publishing- which put out the anti-John Kerry “Unfit for Command” in 2004- isn’t seeing a huge market for Bush. “Certainly the longer he waits,” said president Marji Ross, “the better.”

When Clinton left office, his approval ratings sat at a robust 65%, and the interest in Clinton as a figure around the world (global sales can significantly bolster an American book’s net haul) was extremely high. But Bush’s popularity rating is hovering in the paltry 25-30% range, and with the election of Barack Obama last week, international interest in Bush remains low.

And with conservative fervor aimed squarely at the new Democratic president and the even-more-heavily Democratic Congress, there isn’t a whole lot of energy for Republicans to spend reveling in the glory of a president who- for all intents and purposes- led the GOP to its worst consecutive defeats in modern political history.

Surely, Bush will write a memoir eventually, and it will probably sell reasonably well. Bush believes that his legacy will be greater appreciated by history than it is in the present. Supporters often compare him to Harry Truman, who was unpopular when he left office, but eventually became one of the most revered presidents in American history.