Vice President Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, underwent three hours of tests at George Washington University Medical Center yesterday after he experienced shortness of breath and was coughing up phlegm.
Doctors said the tests did not show any heart abnormalities, just a bad cold. He spent last night at his official residence in Washington.
"I feel fine," Cheney, 63, said as he walked out of the hospital and into his black Suburban.
Mary Matalin, Cheney's former counselor, said the battery of tests was done "out of an abundance of caution."
"His work has not been and will not be interrupted," she said.
Cheney and his wife, Lynne, who accompanied him to the hospital, planned to go ahead with a social engagement yesterday evening.
The vice president spent much of the past year on the road as a fundraiser and campaigner for the Bush-Cheney ticket and for Republican congressional candidates.
The White House released a statement by Cheney's longtime cardiologist, Jonathan S. Reiner, saying that the tests had ruled out "any cardiac cause for the vice president's symptoms," and had ruled out pneumonia.
"The vice president likely has a viral, upper respiratory infection," the statement said.
In other words, an infection of the nose and throat -- a cold. Nevertheless, the episode drew attention to Cheney's health as he and an apparently vigorous President Bush prepare for their second term.
Bush skipped the physical that he usually undergoes each August. A knee condition has prevented Bush from running, and he has had several spills while mountain biking, a sport he took up after his jogging was curtailed.
Asked by The Washington Post last week why Bush still has not undergone a physical, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: "Like other Americans, the president discussed the timing of his physical with his doctor, and they felt it was perfectly fine to do it sometime after early November. He had a busier travel schedule the last few months than the previous three years. The president is physically fit and in great health. If his doctor felt he needed to do it sooner, he would have."
Aides said Cheney uses an elliptical trainer and kept up his regimen on the campaign trail. Sometimes the exercise machine was seen being unloaded from Air Force Two, and sometimes it was ready for the vice president in his hotel room. Cheney maintains a diet that emphasizes fish, buffalo and salad, aides said.
Cheney's aides said he developed his cold last week during an annual pheasant-hunting trip to South Dakota. Among those he hunted with were Sen.-elect John Thune (R-S.D.), who unseated Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in the Nov. 2 election. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, also went along on the trip.
