Will Bill Clinton slow down after heart procedure?

JIM FITZGERALD and BETH FOUHY Yahoo! News 02/13/2010 01:34

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. – Right until he was wheeled into an operating room for a heart procedure, Bill Clinton was on the phone, talking about Haiti earthquake relief. An aide finally took the phone away from him.

On Friday, the 63-year-old former president seemed to have returned to multitasking, just a day after having a clogged artery reopened and two stents inserted into his chest.

"I feel great," Clinton said, speaking to reporters from the driveway outside his home. "The doctors and the hospital crew did a great job ... I even did a couple miles on the treadmill today."

In the television clip aired by WABC-TV, Clinton said he also worked about three hours on Haiti-relief efforts.

Aides said Clinton's second heart procedure in five years seemed unlikely to slow down his brutal work schedule, which included two trips to Haiti, stumping for Senate candidate Martha Coakley and attending an economic summit in Switzerland — all in just over a month.

"He's working as hard as he's ever worked. He's done it for 63 years and will do it for the next 63 years. He's never going to stop," said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist who helped guide Clinton's first presidential bid in 1992.

But some other advisers said Clinton's brief hospitalization was a reminder that his health has become more fragile. They worried that he's running too hard.

"He's got to slow down," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said on MSNBC Friday. "He's got to slow down to a good, human schedule. He's had a superhuman schedule for a long while, and he's got to cut back. There's no question about it."