George H.W. Bush hospitalized

Former President George H.W. Bush has been hospitalized in Houston with a chronic cough.

According to the Houston Chronicle, he has been in Methodist Hospital for seven days as doctors treat him for a lingering cough that has drawn concern. Bush, 88, has bronchitis, but it is not life threatening, said his chief of staff Jean Becker.

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"President Bush is in the hospital," Becker said. "We have kept this quiet out of respect for him."

The New York Daily News reported that Bush has been fighting pneumonia and that he's been in and out of the hospital for the last few weeks.

"He was in really bad shape two weeks ago but they did a procedure and it made things better," a source close to Bush told the Daily News. "But he's still weak and frail."

"He's been overdoing it lately," a family friend added. "He's always been that way but he just doesn't have the strength anymore to keep it up."

CNN quoted the hospital treating Bush as saying he was being treated for complications related to bronchitis and that he is expected to be released within the next 72 hours.

The former president and father of another former president, George W. Bush, has a form of Parkinson's disease that affects his legs and has left him in a wheelchair, according to CNN. He is the oldest living former president and a World War II veteran.