SHOTLIST:KRIV - COURTESY, EMBARGO HOUSTONHouston - December 26, 20121. SOUNDBITE: Jim McGrath/George HW Bush's Spokesman"Well, the president was admitted to the ICU, the intensive care unit at Methodist on Sunday. He's been dealing with a series of setbacks, which includes a persistent fever, and doctors are doing everything they can to wrap their arms around it. They are cautiously optimistic that their current course of treatment is going to be effective. The president is ... they don't put you in the ICU because things are going well. So we're obviously hoping that the medicines and the treatments can help him turn things around."2. SOUNDBITE: Jim McGrath/George HW Bush's Spokesman"He battled bronchitis for about three weeks. At age 88, despite the great shape that the president's always been in throughout his life, that really takes a toll on you. Coming out of that, he was doing his physical therapy, that was going well, until the middle part of last week. He just started to have a few low energy days, and things kind of snowballed from there at probably exactly the wrong time, because of his weakened condition, because of the fight against bronchitis, at 88 years old it just adds up to a tough situation right now. (Reporter: Was he able to have a Christmas of some sort?) He was conscious; he was able to visit with his family members. Hewas joking with medical staff and nurses and the doctors there and so he hasn't lost his sense of humor to be sure, but he was not able to celebrate it in the traditional sense of the word."STORYLINE:Former President George H.W. Bush has been admitted to the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital "following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever," but he is alert and talking to medical staff, his spokesman said Wednesday.Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, said in a brief email that Bush was admitted to the ICU at Methodist Hospital on Sunday. He said doctors are cautiously optimistic about his treatment and that the former president "remains in guarded condition."No other details were released about his medical condition, but McGrath said Bush is surrounded by family.Bush has been hospitalized since mid-November.Earlier Wednesday, McGrath said a fever that kept Bush in the hospital over Christmas had gotten worse and that doctors had put him on a liquids-only diet. Bush was visited on Christmas by his wife, Barbara, his son, Neil, and Neil's wife, Maria, and a grandson, McGrath said. Bush's daughter, Dorothy, was expected to arrive Wednesday in Houston from Bethesda, Md. The 41st president has also been visited twice by his sons, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.Bush and his wife live in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president was a naval aviator in World War II _ at one point the youngest in the Navy _ and was shot down over the Pacific. He achieved notoriety in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.(****END****)