WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole has been hospitalized and according to one former colleague he isn’t doing well.
Dole, 89, was hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, according to Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada.
“He is at Walter Reed not for a check up,” Reid said while speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday. “He is there because he is infirm. He is sick.”
Reid said he spoke on the phone with Dole a few days ago, calling the former Kansas senator a “stalwart figure” in American history.
“He had all the qualities of a leader that I admire and certainly would wish I had,” said Reid.
Dole, the Repubican presidential nominee in 1996 and vice-presidential nominee in 1976, served as U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969-96. He is also a decorated World War II veteran who was seriously wounded in combat in Italy in 1945.
Dole has been hospitalized numerous times in recent years, including for an extended period in 2010 for pneumonia.
