Politics has become an invasive procedure, and Cheney is now the Patient in Chief. Admired in Washington, trusted by his boss, Cheney is the most powerful vice president in modern times. But while no veep has had more clout, responsibility or respect, none has had a medical condition–chronic heart disease–more problematic, distracting or enduring. The story won’t go away, and neither will the question: is this nearly indispensable man sturdy enough for George W. Bush to lean on?
The Bush family was concerned enough to ask that question last summer, when W was settling on Cheney for No. 2. They knew that Cheney had had three heart attacks since the age of 37, and a quadruple bypass in 1988. Bush II called Bush I, who called Dr. Denton Cooley, the famed heart surgeon in Houston. A Bush family friend, Cooley consulted with Cheney’s cardiologists in Washington and came back with an answer: Cheney’s good to go. Good enough.
But since Election Day, Cheney’s matters of the heart have mattered all too much. Last November, one of his minor arteries failed and he suffered a fourth, mild heart attack. He was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where doctors inserted a metallic stent into the artery to keep it open. Then, last week, Cheney checked himself into G.W. again, this time after he started feeling “twinges” of pain over a period of several days. There was no heart attack this time, but doctors found that the stent had partially narrowed, and performed a balloon angioplasty to reopen it. The VP has a “history of chronic artery disease,” said his cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan S. Reiner. Still, he said, “there is a very high likelihood that he can finish out his term in his extremely vigorous capacity.”
In Bush’s world, a vigorous Cheney is what matters. Especially now, his experience and peripheral vision are crucial. His veep has “important work to do,” Bush said, in a statement giving thanks for the good prognosis. To be sure, Cheney is hardly prime minister. The power behind the throne is shared with the Austin Powers–Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Larry Lindsey and a handful of others–who designed and built the administration’s agenda, including Bush’s $1.6 trillion tax cut and the hit-the-road strategy to sell it. “The president makes decisions,” says Hughes, and sees Cheney as a “wise counselor”–consigliere, not a COO.
Still, consigliere is a powerful role. Cheney’s resume is unrivaled, his contacts wide-ranging, his manner droll, avuncular and knowing. He meets every morning with Bush and chief of staff Andy Card. He was a key participant in meetings that shaped early administration moves on Iraq, the fiscal policy and energy. When budget director Mitch Daniels was assembling a spending plan, he asked Cheney to join his review committee. The veep’s presence sent a message to money-hungry cabinet secretaries: back off. No one protested their allocation.
Cheney is Mr. Inside–while his boss revels in the role of Mr. Outside. Last week Bush worked enthusiastic crowds in states he won last fall–states in which Democratic senators have yet to join his tax-cut crusade. His $1 trillion income-tax reduction proposal had just passed the House, and he could barely contain himself. He was bathed in adulation on the airport tarmac in Louisiana and at an auditorium in North Dakota. “I’m so proud to be your president!” he told a cheering throng in Fargo.
In Washington, meanwhile, Cheney–a day after leaving the hospital–motorcaded to the Hill to meet with House Republicans. He worked the phones in the Senate, plotting strategy for the coming tax battle there with his good friend, GOP Senate leader Trent Lott. On Friday he met for breakfast with the foreign-policy team, which includes his former mentor Donald Rumsfeld and his longtime colleague Colin Powell.
Cheney prefers to operate in these intimate settings. But now his clout–and his infirmity–make obscurity impossible. Unavoidably, he’s become a poster child for heart disease and ways to treat it. His case is being closely monitored by experts such as Dr. Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic, who says Cheney’s current regime of exercise, extensive medication and low-fat diet means he’s properly “tucked in” as a patient. Indeed, Cheney’s situation may not be as desperate as it seems. Friends insist he thrives on the challenges of running things, and might be more stressed out if he slowed down. It’s campaigning he doesn’t seem to like (all four heart attacks occurred in campaign years), but Bush can handle that. After 20 years of two packs a day, Cheney quit smoking, cold turkey, in 1978. He remains devoted to fishing, hunting and skiing. His father had heart disease, too–he underwent a bypass operation in 1978–yet lived until the age of 83.
But it’s taken Cheney years, perhaps too many, to accept the dismal realities of treadmills and low-fat diets. He ballooned in weight after leaving the keep-in-trim culture of the Pentagon in 1993 for the life of an oil-patch fat cat. Even after feeling “twinges,” he was forking butter pats onto his bread plate at lunch last Monday. An avid cook who for years did the family shopping, Cheney loves a nice thick steak–even on fishing trips. “He’s a child of the beef belt,” a close friend lamented. “What can you say?”
Well, how about: stop! Some friends, in fact, have suggested to Cheney’s advisers that he consult Dr. Dean Ornish, the heart specialist who prescribes a “vegan” diet, meditation and modest exercise to fight–and even reverse–the effects of heart disease. Ornish, whose science is widely respected, has treated celebrities of both parties–the Clintons as well as Newt Gingrich and Dan Burton. A Cheney aide insists there are no plans to consult Ornish. But Cheney could do worse. He doesn’t relish this kind of attention. But he needs the help–and so does Bush.
