In my mind, the Bush administration begins in earnest this week. Until now, I and my fellow political scribes have been obsessed with Bill Clinton’s Long Goodbye, which, thankfully, seems over. The gumshoes may yet nab some people for wrongdoing in Pardongate, but the predatory political culture of Washington has turned, finally, to taking its first clear look at the Bush crowd. The tax bill finally caught our attention. This was the week in which the debate was going to get serious: How big should the tax cut be, and for whom? The House will pass the core of Bush’s plan this week. That’s the easy part, like a lazy first serve. Now the hard part begins: getting the $1 trillion measure through a 50-50 Senate. Bush is crisscrossing the country selling his plan in states with undecided senators.

But it turns out that the first big story of the Bush Years isn’t about Bush but about his No. 2-Washington’s newest indispensable man, Richard B. Cheney. No vice president has ever wielded more power, at least on paper. None has been more relied upon by his president, at least at the start. None has had this much coverage, at least for now.

I think of Dick Cheney as George W. Bush’s training wheels-a steadying, guiding force for an eager but untested rider on the two-wheel bike of High Policy. As everyone knows, Cheney’s portfolio is bulging. It includes the budget, the force-projection side of foreign policy, the energy-production crisis, relations with Capitol Hill. Not to mention being on hand every time Bush meets a foreign leader.

Bush showed his self-confidence and honesty last summer when he picked Cheney to be his sidekick. He knew that the American people had doubts about his knowledge, at the very least, and Bush took the first step in shaping his presidency-if there was going to be one-by asking Cheney to be his guide and tutor. It was, in a way, gutsy. But now the steadying hand is being looked at for signs of unsteadiness-at least physically speaking.

Frankly, no one would have cared if John Nance Garner had had a heart attack in the FDR years. Before cable, we wouldn’t have known nearly so much about arteries and stents. But the vice presidency has been growing in importance and power since Walter Mondale’s time, and news coverage is as invasive as a surgical procedure. And Bush has made the vice presidency even more important.

So the capital is transfixed. How’s Cheney? OK. What did he eat at lunch the other day, just before he went to the hospital? Chef salad without the ham. What’s his schedule look like for the end of the week? As full as prudence and the doctors will allow.

So I, like every other political schlepper, spoke yesterday with Mary Matalin, the famous Diva Pundit who started her professional life as a hairdresser and who joined the administration at its launch to be Cheney’s Spin Doctor in chief. She went over with me what he would be doing the day after leaving the hospital and retreating to his new home, the vice presidential mansion on Massachusetts Ave.

He was, she said, unpacking boxes with his wife, Lynne, at the VP mansion. Sure. On a more serious note, he would show the flag by meeting with the leader of South Korea, and then head up to Capitol Hill to lobby for passage of the Bush tax cut.

There had been no fifth heart attack, Matalin told me. The enzyme levels and other indicators were normal. It was all much ado about nothing. Then again, it was the biggest story in town. Ironically, Matalin had seen a darker version of this movie before. Years ago, she was the right-hand person to Lee Atwater, the devilish, touched-by-genius mastermind of George Herbert Walker Bush’s 1988 presidential victory. When Atwater had been named chairman of the Republican National Committee, Matalin had gone along to be his chief of staff.

But a year after he took the chairmanship, Atwater was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor. Matalin and a few other close aides knew, from the first, that it was a no-exit killer. But she didn’t tell the press that, or even hint of it. “We didn’t want Lee to know,” she told me. “God will forgive me.”

This is an entirely different matter. Cheney, thank God, is as healthy as his condition allows. He is taking his new diet and exercise regimen seriously. He was right, and responsible, to go to the hospital when he did. He is not, apparently, in mortal danger. There is no dread diagnosis; just the opposite.

So there is no reason to keep anything from him, Mary or from any one of us. Let’s hope it stays that way.