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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (268257)	6/29/2002 10:32:09 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Doctors to Get Rare View of President Friday: President Bush announces plans for a colonoscopy. Saturday, June 29, 2002 WASHINGTON — President Bush must be sedated in order to undergo a colonoscopy Saturday, so he will briefly hand over the powers of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney, he said. "I'm going to be sedated for a period of time and we'll transfer power to the vice president during that time and I look forward to exercising tomorrow afternoon after the procedure takes place," the president told reporters Friday. The invocation of the 25th amendment, which calls for a transfer of power in the event the president is unable to fulfill the duties of the office, should only be in effect for "a matter of hours," White House counsel Al Gonzales said. Cheney will be "standing by. He realizes he's not going to be president that long," Bush said. Bush, who celebrates his 56th birthday next week, is having the procedure because he was diagnosed with benign polyps previously, and was told that he would need a checkup at a later time. He said he has no symptoms of a return of the condition and Saturday's exam is routine. The procedure was being conducted at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat by a team of military doctors overseen by the White House physician, Dr. Richard Tubb. The president had two benign polyps surgically removed from his colon in July 1998, according to presidential campaign medical records. A colonoscopy is considered the best way to examine the colon and to find and remove polyps. The procedure, performed regularly, is believed to reduce the risk of colon cancer by up to 90 percent. More than 2 million are performed annually in the United States. The procedure uses a flexible tube containing an optical scope that enables the doctor to view the entire length of the colon. A wire cutter can be threaded through the tube and used to remove any polyps discovered. Generally, physicians recommend that people after the age of 50 receive a colonoscopy every three to five years, depending on the patient's personal and family history of colon cancer. For some patients, the procedure is done annually. Bush said he wants to transfer authority to Cheney as a precautionary measure, considering that the nation is at war. Gonzales said Section 3 of the 25th Amendment – enacted in 1967, four years after President Kennedy's assassination – will be invoked by Bush in a letter faxed to congressional leaders and signed by the president. "I'm the first president to have done so under this type of procedure of physical examination. I did so because we're at war and just want to be super cautious," he said. As news of the transfer broke, Cheney was giving a speech in Charlotte, N.C., to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in which he outlined Bush's domestic agenda and the war on terrorism. It was part of a full day of Cheney fund-raising for GOP candidates in the state, including Senate candidate Elizabeth Dole. Cheney will be in Washington this weekend. The Associated Press contributed to this report. foxnews.com