This Week's 'The List' -- Armstrong's Win

July 25, 2004 -- — A weekly feature on This Week.

Voices/Images

The world's most famous cancer survivor, Lance Armstrong, crossed the finish line on Sunday for his record sixth Tour de France victory.

Lance Armstrong: "When I got sick, no team would pick me up because it wasn't going to be possible for me to race again. When I'm leading the Tour de France and doing things that nobody ever thought was possible, the only thing they could say was, 'This can't be. This is not possible. There must be something there.' But I'm here to tell you, and I'm here to show them, that it's absolutely possible. I don't want anybody to have to go through what I went through. But if I can sort of tell the story, then people can just sort of believe it. It's been a big advantage for me. It really has. It's made me a better rider."

A year ago, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was politically on fire. But in a new book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, campaign manager Joe Trippi reveals that Dean did not have that fire in his belly.

He is now the frontrunner — everything he does and says will attract new scrutiny — and he can't say out of one side of his mouth that he wants to clean up politics, while out of the other side say that his own records are off-limits for a frickin' decade.

We tell him that it's starting to show up in the polls.

"You've got to release the records, Governor."

His eyes are set, and his open face is pulled back defensively into that tree-trunk neck. "But there's nothing in there."

"If there's nothing in there, then we should release them."

"But there's nothing in there."

"That's why we have to release them."

"But why should we release them when there's nothing in there?"

"I would rather withdraw from the race than release those records."

Howard Dean is standing against the wall, his back to me. He's shaking.

"You made this too easy," he manages to say.

"What?" I ask.

"This. I never thought it would go this far. I was going to raise my profile, raise health care as an issue, shake up the Democratic Party, help change the country. But I never thought this would happen. Don't you understand?" He turns and faces me. "I never thought I could actually win. I wanted to … but I never really thought it could happen."