Johanna Neuman and James Gerstenzang are heading to new ventures, spurred by the closing of the Los Angeles Times' Washington Bureau and the creation of a bureau -- smaller than the Times office at the beginning of the year -- serving all news outlets owned by the Tribune Co.
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Bill Clinton got a $15-million advance to write his memoir, "My Life." And he was a president who'd been impeached for an embarrassing dalliance in the Oval Office.
For one thing, he's not known as an introspective guy given to self-criticism, seen as key to sales.
"I think any success will depend to a very large extent on [the content of] the book," said Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which published former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's tough take on the White House.
For another, foreign rights would be unlikely.
"President Bush is perceived as a unilateral cowboy who didn't respect other nations," said Jonathan Karp, whose Hachette Book Group published "Hard Call," Republican John McCain's latest book. "So there's a shortfall overseas."
Mostly, because his reputation, like Harry S. Truman's, may require a few decades to appreciate. Truman, the haberdasher from Independence, Mo., who became president on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's death in 1945, left office in 1953 as unpopular as Bush is now. His own memoir, a two-volume affair published in the 1950s, is little remembered. It was only in the 1990s, when David McCullough wrote his bestselling "Truman," that the pugnacious accidental president became an admired figure.
"Only in hindsight will history show whether Bush is deemed to be a good president who sacrificed his presidency for what he believed in or whether history judges him to be a failed president," said Marji Ross, president of the conservative Regnery Publishing, which, given its conservative audience, is in the market for books critical of President-elect Barack Obama.
Still, says Karp, if Bush is interested in penning his own version of history, he should consider it.
"Maybe only 30% of the public is still behind him," said Karp. "But 30% of 300 million people is not a small number."
President Bush, who kept a public silence on the race to succeed him in the closing days of the campaign, called Barack Obama seven minutes after the Associated Press projected that the Democratic senator would win the presidency.
The president called John McCain 26 minutes later, after McCain conceded defeat.
In a brief e-mailed statement, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke with Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST.
According to Perino's message, Bush said:
Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters. Laura and I called to congratulate you and your good bride.
I promise to make this a smooth transition. You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself.
She said Bush invited Obama and his family "to visit the White House soon, at their convenience."
Perino said Bush told McCain:
John, you gave it your all. I'm proud of you, and I'm sorry it didn't work out. You didn't leave anything on the playing field.
Your statement was fabulous and very classy. Please give our love to Cindy.
Both calls were made from the Treaty Room, the president's office in the White House residence, Perino said.
She said Bush would speak in the Rose Garden at 7:40 a.m. PST on Wednesday.
Chuck Todd, at the white electronic board on MSNBC's campaign set, recalled NBC's beloved and much-missed colleague Tim Russert, the host of "Meet the Press" who died earlier this year.
Todd said he had been musing about Russert's prescient calls on election nights past — Tim's prediction in 2000 that the election would come down to "Florida, Florida, Florida" and his call in 2004 that the presidential race would be decided in "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio."
Russert's whiteboard has long been replaced by fancy high-tech gear. But Todd, saying he had tried to think of what the respected NBC newsman would do at the board in 2008, said he didn't think Russert would write down a state's name.
Instead, said Todd, he would write ...
"Bush, Bush, Bush."
His explanation: The size of the Republican losses — Liddy Dole loses her race decisively in North Carolina, Jeanne Shaheen defeats Republican moderate John Sununu handily, Barack Obama bests John McCain in a landslide — just doesn't happen if President Bush had been more popular.
There is likely to be much second-guessing in the morning, a whole TV cast of pundits to weigh the factors that led to the 2008 dramatic victory for Democrats. Some will say that Obama, with his massive get-out-the-vote effort and his prowess at harnessing a youth-powered social network, won the election. Others will say that it was more that McCain lost the election with his lurching from issue to issue, and with his pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
But Todd is not likely to be alone in judging that Bush, whose popularity rating according to CBS News is at an all-time presidential low of 20%, hurt the Republican brand.
For her birthday I'd like to send her something new, fresh, youthful and energetic: A president named Barack Obama. Laura Bush has a lot of class, and I'm sure she will appreciate it.
No word yet on what President Bush is getting the first lady for her last birthday in the White House. (Actually we got word late at night that he gave her a pair of what press secretary Dana Perino described as "a pair of beautiful earrings.") But Mrs. Bush herself hinted that she was looking forward to a new president, or at least to the end of the presidential campaign. In a speech the other day, she made reference to all the times during the campaign that Obama tried to tie John McCain to the Bush White House. At a Kentucky campaign stop, she said:
I'm really looking forward to election day, partly because it seems like George has been on the ticket this entire year.
Press secretary Sally McDonough says that the president and Mrs. Bush have invited friends and senior staff to join them for dinner on election night. And, in celebration of her birthday, they'll have coconut birthday cake for dessert.
There were no lines. No finicky touch screens. There was no voting booth.
Just a cleared desk on Oct. 24 as President Bush filled out his ballot in the Oval Office and dispatched it to Texas. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said he did, indeed, vote for Republican John McCain.
It was symbolic of a quiet election season for a president who grew up in a political family, the grandson of a senator, the son of a member of Congress and president and, on his mother's side, the descendant of a president, Franklin Pierce.
Since endorsing McCain eight months ago, Bush has been seen with him only once -- and that was in passing at an airport in Arizona in late May. He spent the weekend before the election at Camp David, Md. His White House schedule Monday and today was clear of any public events.
His presence on the campaign trail was not welcome.
In his triumphant, hour-long acceptance speech from Denver in late August (the one with the fake Greek columns), Democrat Barack Obama mentioned his opponent John McCain 22 times. George W. Bush only got eight mentions.
But ever since the economic meltdown that sent Wall Street cratering and Main Street shivering, Bush has become the target of Obama's oratory, his economic policies the bogeyman for what polls suggest could be a historic landslide.
As the clock ticks down on the longest-running, most expensive and potentially most groundbreaking election in U.S. history, the senator from Illinois is wowing crowds with a stump speech that ties McCain ever tighter to the unpopular incumbent in the White House.
At his first rally in Jacksonville, Fla., this morning, Obama said:
The last thing we can afford is four more years of the tired, old theory that says we should give more to billionaires and big corporations and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. The last thing we can afford is four more years where no one in Washington is watching anyone on Wall Street because politicians and lobbyists killed common-sense regulations. Those are the theories that got us into this mess.
Obama said McCain "has stood with this president every step of the way. Voting for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that he once opposed. Voting for the Bush budgets that spent us into debate. Calling for less regulation 21 times just this year." After 21 months of campaigning and three debates, Obama said, "Sen. McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he'd do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy."
He added, "George Bush dug us into a ditch. Now he's trying to give the shovel to John McCain."
For his part, McCain tells voters at almost every stop that he both he and Obama "have differences with how President Bush has handled the economy." Then he pivots, arguing that Obama "thinks taxes are too low, and I think spending is too high." Then he reprises a line from their last debate, saying:
Sen. Obama; I'm not President Bush...if you wanted to run against President Bush you should have ran four years ago.
The White House has noticed that both campaigns seem fixated on the president. First Lady Laura Bush, campaigning today in Shepherdsville, Ky., put it this way:
After months of primary elections, campaign ads and debates, tomorrow is finally Election Day. I'm really looking forward to Election Day, partly because it seems like George has been on the ticket this entire year.
Somehow, however, the paper managed the produce its endorsement editorial without reference to Cheney or President Bush--while making abundantly clear that conditions in the country after eight years of their leadership demanded a change.
The newspaper's editorial board wrote:
The next occupant of the White House will inherit a national economy that's collapsing and two wars our nation has been fighting for years, depleting valuable resources we need to fix a multitude of domestic problems. Far too many of our nation's citizens live paycheck to paycheck, worried about whether they'll have a job next week or if a medical crisis will bankrupt them.
By a count assembled by Editor & Publisher, that makes the pro-Obama editorial tally over McCain 250 to 110.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: Ben Woloszyn / Laramie Daily Boomerang, via Associated Press
With an open that notes Obama's recent endorsements from former Secretary of State Colin Powell and fabled investor Warren Buffet, the ad then cuts to Cheney at a campaign event Saturday in Wyoming, his home state, one of the dwindling number in the safely Republican column. In the footage, Cheney says:
I'm delighted to support John McCain. I'm pleased that he's chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness and common sense, our next vice president Sarah Palin.
It's kind of unusual for a presidential campaign to target the other side for having the support of its team. But Cheney and President Bush both are down in public opinion polls so the Obama campaign elected to use the footage to underscore its theme that McCain's policies would result in a third Bush term.
Noting McCain's support for the White House "90% of the time," the ad concludes, "That's not the change we need."
Keeping in mind that it is more difficult to undo a government regulation than it is to put one into place, President Bush's aides are making a final push to shape the federal rule book -- and weaken the regs that protect consumers and the environment.
The idea is to put the new rules into effect before Bush leaves office -- knowing that whether he is followed by Barack Obama or John McCain, the changes are likely to remain in place for a long time.
In bits and pieces, the administration has been chipping away, tweaking here, chain-sawing there, in an effort to redraw the government's reach -- and in many cases, pull it back.
Countdown to Crawford reported on a couple of moves earlier this month, including one to limit product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.
The Washington Post took a look at the administration's efforts today, noting:
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
The paper noted that the latest changes would reduce obstacles to some commercial fishing activities, reduce controls on the emissions that contribute to global warming, "relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining."
If a new administration wants to remove the rules, in most cases it would have to go through a lengthy regulatory proceeding involving a period of public comment, rule-writing and analysis of the proposed changes.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
In his triumphant, hour-long acceptance speech from Denver in late August (the one with the fake Greek columns), Democrat 
