No, we don't now what former president George H.W. Bush is crooning from his hospital bed, but it sure sounds like the 88-year-old is doing better with that fever than he was earlier this week. The latest statement, after a string of alternately bad, worse, and pretty good updates from bedside in Houston, arrived Friday afternoon from Bush family spokesman Jim McGrath: 

President Bush remains in the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital, where he continues to improve. The President is alert and, as always, in good spirits — and his exchanges with doctors and nurses now include singing. The Bushes thank everyone for their prayers and good wishes and, like their doctors, are cautiously optimistic that the current course of treatment will be effective.

Is it Rihanna? Is former president Bush singing Rihanna? OK, fine, maybe not. But this is the first time all month that the previously trepidatious and even contradictory McGrath has been so detailed and positive, so the singing really is good news. McGrath's statement comes on the heels of what Bush's former chief of staff Jean Becker said yesterday when he urged everyone (including the media) to "put the harps back in the closet" and stop writing off the elder Bush — not that it stopped one local Texas radio station from incorrectly reporting his death.

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Alexander Abad-Santos