You know someone's pretty well-connected when, on Ellen DeGeneres' TV show, they can swiftly get the president of the United States on the phone. Then again, when that person is one of the two people who calls the most powerful man on earth "Dad," it comes with the territory — as does a small army of Secret Service agents and bomb-sniffing dogs.

For the past several months, Jenna Bush — the blond half of the president's 26-year-old twins — has been touring the country, making stops at talk shows, bookstores and schools to promote her book, "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope." The tale is of a 17-year-old mother living with AIDS whom Jenna met while traveling through South America with the United Nations Children's Fund.

Prior to promoting "Ana's Story," which was released in late September, Jenna had done exactly one interview, by her count. "I didn't have anything to say, and then when I met Ana and these other kids that don't have voices for whatever reason, I hoped I could be their voice with this book," she told MTV during an interview held in Ohio in late October.

But a book wasn't always a part of the plan. Jenna initially teamed up with UNICEF as part of an internship in late 2006, when she was tasked with meeting kids and writing their stories so potential donors back in the U.S. could learn about exactly what UNICEF does and where the money goes. "They thought, and I agree, that stories tell more than just statistics," she said. "So, as I met with all of these kids, but Ana in particular, I thought that their stories were compelling. And I thought that it was something that should be brought back here to the kids in the U.S., and then 'Ana's Story' was born."

Getting "Ana's Story" out there has caused Jenna to completely thrust herself into the limelight for the first time, giving speeches and reading excerpts of the book for audiences of all ages across the country. She's trying to spread the story of a young woman who, in Ana's own words, is living with AIDS, not dying from it. In order to protect the identity of the subject of her book, Jenna used the "Ana" pseudonym and did not specify the country in which the woman lives because "she was worried that people might find her if her country was in it."

According to Jenna, the reason she chose to tell Ana's story was because the young mother wanted someone to. "She really thought it was important to tell her story so that kids here could learn about HIV/AIDS." To that end, "Ana's Story" also has several appendices that provide resources for people to learn about HIV/AIDS, from lists of Web sites to go to for help to sections devoted to dismissing major myths about the disease.

By her own admission, Jenna wasn't always as informed about HIV/AIDS as she could have been. When asked if she feared AIDS and people infected with HIV when she was in her teens, she said, "I wasn't afraid of it, but I wasn't educated [about the disease] either. You know, I was really shocked to learn some of the things that I've learned."

Since her father, George W., has become synonymous with the abstinence-only approach to sex education, the idea of his daughter writing a book that talks explicitly about using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV has raised some eyebrows.

While Jenna hasn't explicitly taken her father's policy to task — "obviously the very, very safest thing you can do is to not have sex," she said when asked about the subject — she also stated that "the most important thing is education, period. ... I think especially [girls] here in the United States and in developing countries in Latin America need to be educated on their rights."

And while much has been made in previous interviews of the apparent discrepancy between her opinions on condoms and those of her father, one has to assume that even when your dad is the most powerful man on the planet, you're not going to see eye to eye with him on everything. It just goes to show that even (or perhaps especially) when your dad is president, politics may not make for the best of dinner conversations.

Differences with Dad or not, one thing remains certain — once Jenna feels she's done all she can to tell "Ana's Story," she's looking forward to returning to the closest thing a person with Secret Service protection can refer to as "normalcy." "I like being a private person, [and] I will go back to being a private person, a teacher," she said.

That's right, a teacher — not a politician. When asked if she would ever pursue a future in politics to become the first Bush woman in office, she replied, "Not a chance." Instead, "I think I'm better suited for the classroom and for writing, I hope to continue that," she said emphatically. She said she hopes to start teaching again "next fall, whenever I settle down to wherever I'm settling."

"Settling" as in starting her own family: While she wouldn't dish on a date, Jenna is engaged to be married to her boyfriend Henry Hager sometime in 2008.

As for her immediate family, Jenna says that, for her, the good has far outweighed the bad in terms of being a first daughter. Still, with a little over a year left until her father's final term in office is done, Jenna says she is at least partly looking forward to the conclusion of his tenure.

"We can have our family back in a way that we haven't had in the last seven years," she said.