One Thousand and Sixty-Five Days To Go

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By the time Bush took questions from reporters the next day, White House aides say, he was basically sick of the topic. "The President really thought that this was fundamentally a judgment call about when you inform the press about a hunting accident," said an adviser who had talked to him. "While that's important in some ways when you're the Vice President, it's not as important as other matters that come before the President." As for critics on the Hill, a House Republican leadership aide said Cheney will remain the lawmakers' top back channel to Bush. "A hunting accident, even with their bungling, isn't going to change that. It's been helpful that the press has been so obnoxious and such prima donnas. It made people here feel sorry for the White House." Says Senator Lindsey Graham: "I've seen nothing in my dealings with the White House to suggest that this Vice President has lost any political standing within the Administration." And everyone was relieved to see Whittington emerge from the hospital, grateful to his doctors, gracious to the press, sorry for what Cheney had been through and describing the whole thing as a "cloud of misfortune and sadness that is not easy to explain."

ACTUALLY, WHATEVER CLOUDS REMAIN OVER the White House were not hard to explain, say those who have studied weather patterns between Bushland and Cheneyland. They have always been separate worlds, far more than the public image of a tight, disciplined team suggests. Bushland is by instinct more reformist, more political, more female and, in places, deeply devout. Cheneyland is more Establishment, more male, more button-down, more secretive. One man came to town worried about domestic affairs; the other was focused entirely on matters foreign, although 9/11 forced a convergence. One man wants to do the deal, find the compromise; the other avoids it like the plague.

Other presidencies have had their own silent divisions: Clinton had Hillaryland (a more liberal and activist core); George H.W. Bush had Quayleland (a more conservative and activist core). But in one respect Cheney's shop has been completely different from any Vice President's since the Truman years. When Bush recruited him as his running mate in 2000, Cheney made his priorities clear: he would do the inside work and leave the outside work to others. The campaign team described a parade in which Cheney would meet and greet voters. "Um," said a Cheney staff member tentatively, "Mr. Cheney does not like to shake hands." That was actually always part of his appeal: between his age, his four heart attacks and his aura of grouchiness, Cheney was the first Veep in generations to hold the Heartbeat Away portfolio without actually aspiring to the job.