Vice President Cheney Leaves the Hospital; President Bush Goes on the Road to Promote Tax Cuts
ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, this is INSIDE POLITICS with Judy Woodruff. Vice President Cheney leaves the hospital, trailed by questions about his health and ability to serve. As the president keeps promoting tax cuts, we'll look at bottom line for families and for Democrats. And, on this day after the California school shooting, the search for solace, answers, and a different kind of political debate.</s>SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: This is not about the right to own guns. It's about being responsible once you do.</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for joining us. His clogged artery has been cleared. He is out of the hospital, and now, Vice President Dick Cheney is back at home. As he prepares to return to work, Cheney may have political recovery on his mind, given the drumbeat of questions about his heart condition. We begin our coverage of Cheney's health with our senior White House correspondent John King.</s>JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The vice president thanked his lead doctor and headed home from the hospital. And the president welcomed word his point-man would soon be back at the office</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This country needs his wisdom and judgment, and he's the kind of man who listens carefully to his body, and he is not going to put himself in a position where he gets very sick. Any time there is any doubt as to whether or not he needs to see a doctor, he will see a doctor.</s>KING: In a statement, the White House said EKG and cardiac enzyme tests were normal, meaning no new heart attack and no work restrictions were placed on the vice president. But it was another reminder that a man the president relies on for so much has a history of serious heart disease. Cheney is 60 years old, has suffered four year attacks over a 23-year span, and had quadruple artery bypass surgery in 1988. Monday's angioplasty was to reopen an artery that had been operated on after his most recent heart attack last November.</s>DR. STUART SEIDES, CARDIOLOGIST: I think that there is a high likelihood, no one can ever say a certainty, but a high likelihood that there may be recurrent events that additional procedures may be required, and the degree to which that punctuates his term in office, and the degree to which that punctuates or effects the management of the current administration, nobody can say for certain.</s>KING: On a typical day, the vice president exercises for 30 minutes before work on a stationary bike or elliptical trainer, arrives at the White House to join the president for a 7:30 a.m. national security briefing. The days are crowded with back-to-back meetings to plan and sell the Bush agenda, and the vice president tends to leave the White House and head home about 7:00. Selling the Bush tax cut has been one major Cheney task, and there is a key house vote on Thursday.</s>SCOTT REED, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The good news is for Republicans, all these building blocks are in place and the agenda is moving forward, and so if he has to take some time now, it's not going to derail things.</s>KING: In the hours after being released, we're told the vice president went home to the vice president's official residence, checked up on some renovations being done there, helped his wife Lynne unpack some boxes. The Cheneys moved in just last week. Placed a few phone calls to friends to say he was feeling fine, first lady Laura Bush stopped by for a little tea. Soon after she left, the vice president retired to his study and sent top here aides an e-mail, says he'll be at work first thing tomorrow -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: John, even though they are saying that his recovery is coming along as would be expected, this seems like a fast return to work. Was there any pressure on him to come back tomorrow?</s>KING: No pressure at all. In fact, I spoke to senior officials here this morning who said it would be fine with the president and the top staff if the vice president decided he wanted to take the rest of the week off, perhaps come back on Monday. It's a difficult political balance. They know that if he comes in tomorrow morning, as he now plans, some will say he's rushing thing. They also know that if he stayed home for a few days, others might question whether this was more serious and whether he had the stamina to compete for the job. The vice president says he wants to come to work and deal with it. And he says his doctors have told him that it's not the work that affects him. He has a serious heart condition. He may have to go back for more treatment in the future, but it is not linked to stress or to working long hours, he says. It's just simply a condition he's had for some time and has to deal with.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, John King reporting from the White House. Thanks. This latest hospitalization puts more pressure on the vice president to tell all about any future incidents as quickly as possible. CNN's Candy Crowley has more on Cheney's health and the matter of disclosure.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House, the doctors, the patient all say things are OK. The worrisome part is that's pretty much what they always say when the powerful are less than healthful.</s>ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Presidents, vice presidents cannot show weakness. You must not be seen as incapable of performing your duties, and so what you have got to do is put up the boldest front possible and say, well, my health is fine.</s>CROWLEY: There is no evidence that Dick Cheney is anything other than fine, but it is what they said in November.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He sounded really strong, and informed me that as a precautionary measure, he went into the hospital. He was feeling chest pains, and it turns out that subsequent test, blood tests and the initial EKG showed that he had no heart attack.</s>CROWLEY: As it turns out, Cheney did suffer a mild heart attack in November, though initially Bush was told otherwise. The confusion and Cheney's refusal to release all medical data has created a suspicion that's also fueled by history. Grover Cleveland had jaw cancer. John F. Kennedy had Addison's disease. Ronald Reagan nearly died in the hours after he was shot. Vice presidential candidate Tom Eagleton was taken off the McGovern ticket in 1972 when it was disclosed he'd undergone electroshock treatment for depression. And the late Paul Tsongas ran for president as a cancer survivor, but later had a recurrence of cancer, which eventually killed him. History is full of presidents and politicians who lied about, hid, or only partially disclosed some very serious health problems.</s>DALLEK: Well, I think there is a feeling if you show that you have some kind of a limitation, that the public will -- the impulse of the public will be to reject your leadership; that you are going to lose your credentials, so to speak, as an effective leader.</s>CROWLEY: Bill Bradley had a minor heart condition that flared during his presidential campaign. For a day or two, the story overtook his campaign and obliterated his message.</s>ERIC HAUSER, FORMER BILL BRADLEY AIDE: In our case, and I think it is often the case, much more is made of the issue than medically is warranted. Bill Bradley is healthy as a horse, was, is. His minor heart condition had no effect on the campaign, and so forth. So you are reluctant in some ways to get into an issue that more gets made of than should.</s>CROWLEY: When Bradley's problem recurred, his campaign did not disclose the event until it was asked by a reporter. The cost them another day of questions about whether they were being forthcoming.</s>CROWLEY: Dick Cheney comes to office at a time when keeping even the tiniest details of his health record private may no longer be politically viable. Over the years, reporters have become increasingly aggressive, and vice presidents have become increasingly more important -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: Candy, they acknowledge openly, as they must, the vice president has a heart problem, has a history of heart problems, why not release all this information?</s>CROWLEY: Well, you know, there is a problem with the privacy. There's always -- I mean, we are talking about the most private things that happen, and they usually happen between a doctor and a patient. And there is a feeling certainly with this president, and with this vice president, obviously, that some things ought to remain private. But you know, countering that, of course, is -- this is a public figure who has a very -- no one forced into running as vice president, who has a very important job, and the public has a right to know. Just those little details that maybe health reporters might look at and say, well, here's what this means, but as yet, they haven't been convinced of that.</s>WOODRUFF: Is his absence even for a day or two having affect on the administration, other than obvious concern for his health?</s>CROWLEY: Well, I think, you know, when you have the president out pushing his budget plan -- and what we're leading with, of course, on this show is that Dick Cheney has been released from the hospital, that in itself is a problem.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, Candy Crowley. We want you to stick around, because we have another important story that we're going to talk about in just a minute. But now, we are joined by CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield. Jeff, how much pressure is there on the vice president right now to put those medical records out there?</s>JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, I think there's more pressure because of the history in this particular case. If you look back to when Dick Cheney was selected as George Bush's running mate, it's very clear that they were far less than forthcoming. They did not put out the kind of information Candy just alluded to that would have allowed health reporters to look and make an independent judgment. All those statistics on cholesterol, triglycerides, injection fractions, all that stuff that for you and I might not mean much, but to a doctor or a health reporter would mean a lot. And because of this constant lowballing that all White Houses and politicians do -- the fact that he's now been in the hospital a second time since the election I think puts a lot of pressure on us to say, look, you've got to not raise a credibility issue, especially as part of an administration that is trying to draw a contrast in honesty and openness with the last one.</s>WOODRUFF: Well, is there a way, Jeff, given their privacy concerns, where they could put some information out and then keep other information back? Say, release all the heart-related information?</s>GREENFIELD: Of course. That's why the privacy issue, while it's in general legitimate, is really a non-starter in this case. If you were to draw a graph, and try to figure out what belongs in the privacy part of anybody's health records and what doesn't, the capacity of somebody to do a job is as close to a no-brainer as you can get. That's the kind of thing the public must have a right to know, particularly given the history Candy cold us about, of presidents and candidates who have been -- let's be polite -- less than candid. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt ran for a fourth term when everybody who looked at him knew he couldn't live out the year. John Kennedy's Addison's disease was hidden from the public. So that in this case, it's not like some kind of private, personal matter that's none of the public's business. This is the definition of what the public's business is.</s>WOODRUFF: And, Jeff, you know, we all talk about how unusual Cheney is -- that he plays such an extraordinarily important role in this administration. Does it make a difference if someone at his level is away for a few days?</s>GREENFIELD: Well, you know, I -- I always think that people in power tend to exaggerate their indispensability. But the broader question, if I may, is that -- that if a generation ago somebody told you the vice president had a health problem, the general response of the public would be vice president who? But over the last 25 years there's been a sea change in what the vice president means. And in this administration, maybe it's because George Bush is our first MBA president, you've got, in a sense, a chief operating officer. And so the whole image of the Bush administration, which has been, I think, enhanced by, again, the contrast with how the Clinton administration began. As opposed to this dorm room all-night seminar, you've got a smooth, on-time, efficient operation. The fact that the second-in-command, which is what Dick Cheney is, may have a health issue, is a more serious issue than it would be in a -- in, say, an administration from 30 years ago.</s>WOODRUFF: All right. Jeff Greenfield in New York. Thanks very much.</s>GREENFIELD: See ya!</s>WOODRUFF: And now we want to follow up on a controversy that arose during the 2000 presidential campaign which some had dubbed "Debategate." Today a federal grand jury in Texas indicted an employee of the Bush campaign's primary media consultant. The charges stem from the release of the Bush camp's debate preparation material to a political ally of Al Gore. CNN's Jonathan Karl joins us with that story -- Jonathan?</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, as you well remember, that was one of the great mysteries of campaign 2000. When, in the heat of the fall campaign on September 13th, a tape containing 60 minutes's worth of George W. Bush's debate preparation session and 120 pages of debate preparation materials landed on the doorstep of Tom Downey, who was the person in charge of preparing Al Gore for the upcoming debates against George W. Bush, suddenly appeared. Now, this prompted investigation. It prompted charges and countercharges. If you remember, there were suggestions from the Bush campaign and from republicans that democrats had actually somehow gotten into their offices, the offices of Mark McKinnon, their media consultant, and sent these tapes off to Downey. There were countercharges from the democrats that somehow that the Bush campaign did this as effort to set Downey up and to set the Gore campaign up. Well, now the mystery seems to be a step closer to being resolved. The person indicted is Yvette Lozano, who was an employee of Maverick Media, the company run by Mark McKinnon, the top media consultant for George W. Bush. Lozano, 30 years old, was a junior member of the staff there, not somebody of authority within the Maverick Media, but she has been charged with three counts, including mail fraud, false statements to the FBI, and committing perjury before the grand jury that's been investigating this matter. If convicted on all these charges, Lozano could face up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 fine. Now, as you remember, there were these charges that if Lozano was involved, that somehow the Bush campaign was also involved as an effort to say ha ha, the Gore campaign's got this tape. They did this in an effort to set them up. Well, this indictment specifically says that neither the Bush campaign nor Maverick Media had anything to do with this. Quoting from the indictment, it says -- quote -- "defendant Lozano would and did conceal her activity from Maverick Media, the Bush campaign, and others." As a matter of fact, what the indictment does is it portrays Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon's company, as the victim in this case, not as a coconspirator. Now, that said, Judy, you also remember when this was going on back during the campaign and in the days afterwards, that Mark McKinnon stood by Lozano, said that she had absolutely nothing to do with this, compared her to Richard Jewell, who, of course, was charged with the Olympic Park bombing case only to later to be exonerated. This was the situation. They are still standing by her to some extent. You know, Lozano was at Bush campaign headquarters on election night. They've stood by her all along. I've spoken to several people who were involved in the Bush campaign and Maverick Media who say they knew this was coming because they knew the grand jury was gearing up for something. But they are still surprised, and one person very close to Lozano at Maverick Media told me: You know, it looks bad, but we're all human. And she told us that we -- that she had nothing to do with this, and until I see firm evidence, I'm going to believe her. That said, looking at the indictment, veterans of the Bush campaign believe that they may have been wrong all along about this -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: All right. Jon Karl, reporting from the Capitol here in Washington. Thanks very much, Jon. Now, I want to bring back our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, who of course, covered the Bush campaign throughout the election year. Candy, so evidently, what was going on is she just wanted to help Al Gore, or was she hoping to catch the Gore campaign in some theft of Bush debate preparation?</s>CROWLEY: Well, one must assume that right now she's still saying that she didn't do it, which is what she told the Bush campaign and Maverick Media all along. And it remains unclear whether she acted alone, or whether someone on the Democratic side, or some other Republican said, you know, let's do this. So, the motivation is unclear, whether it was simply to help the vice president -- that's what the indictment seems to indicate -- that that was her motivation. But more than that, for the Bush people -- while this is a disappointment, because they did, from Karen Hughes on down, say that they believed in Lozano's innocence and felt that she was being framed in the Richard Jewell scenario. That -- while this is not a wonderful thing to happen, at the time there was talk that perhaps Mark MacKinnon, the chief media consultant, was working -- that somehow he was involved, and somehow Karl Rove was involved.</s>WOODRUFF: He is a former Democrat, MacKinnon.</s>CROWLEY: He is a former Democrat. So, you know, it could have been much bigger, and all along the Bush campaign also said -- now we have a clip from late September -- said that there was just no way that could happen in the Bush campaign.</s>KAREN HUGHES, BUSH COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I can assure you that any implication that any senior member of the Bush campaign would have been interested in helping Al Gore prepare for his debate is just ridiculous. These are my friends and colleagues, these are the people I've worked with tirelessly for three years almost now to -- from the -- I date that back to the first time the governor had a press conference when he was asked about running for president. We have worked tirelessly since that time to help elect him president, and I can assure you that none of our senior campaign team officials are interested in helping Al Gore prepare for his debate with Governor Bush.</s>CROWLEY: So, while this is perhaps a blow to have Lozano be indicted, and it does appear -- given the specificity of this indictment, that they do have the goods. While it's a blow to the Bush White House, because they did believe -- in particular Maverick Media -- the fact that, you know, the higher-ups have apparently been completely exonerated from this has got to be a big plus. But as you saw, they never actually doubted it.</s>WOODRUFF: They have to be deeply, deeply -- feeling deeply, deeply betrayed by this?</s>CROWLEY: Yes, absolutely.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, Candy Crowley, thanks very much. I appreciate it. The nation asks, "Why?" A day after another deadly school shooting, the latest in a live report from Santee, California coming up on INSIDE POLITICS.