Former Sen. Bob Dole was treated for a leg infection.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after surgery to treat a serious leg infection, according to a statement released by his press office Friday.

Dole, 85, was hospitalized last week after experiencing "a sharply elevated heart rate in the middle of the night," the statement said. Doctors determined that the former presidential nominee's heart was fine, but then discovered he had open sores on both of his legs. Surgeons quickly operated and "have since performed several procedures on his left leg," according to the statement.

"I am recovering nicely thanks to the great doctors, nurses and staff at Walter Reed," Dole said in the statement. "I have been coming to Walter Reed for over 40 years and I hope to be out by my birthday, July 22. It has been painful but I think I will be fine."

The statement noted that Dole's doctors believe his legs are healing properly. They are planning to perform a skin graft on his left leg Monday if his recovery continues as expected.

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Dole is not happy with McClellan.

(CNN) – Bob Dole is furious with Scott McClellan's public criticisms of the Bush administration, telling the former White House Press Secretary in an e-mail Thursday he is a "miserable creature" who is "spurred on by greed."

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in the personal e-mail. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

Dole spokesman Michael Marshall confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, first reported by Politico and obtained by CNN.

Dole, the former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, also tells McClellan he is likely looking to "clean up" as "the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm."

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Watch portions of Larry King's interview with Bob Dole.

(CNN) - Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole said Wednesday night that current White House hopeful John McCain has a temper - but added the Arizona senator “can control it.”

Dole told CNN’s Larry King that his former Senate colleague “does have a… I guess you could say temper. But I always sort of rationalized that because the poor guy had been locked up” in a tiny cell for six years. But McCain, he said, “can control it. It's not a problem anymore.”

Dole, a former Senate Majority Leader, told King that the 2008 presidential campaign was historic because it featured “two very unusual candidates - the first serious black candidate for president and the first serious woman candidate” and because, for the first time since John Kennedy was elected, a senator will become commander-in-chief.

Dole, a long-time Kansas senator, ran for president in 1988 and in 1996, when he was the GOP nominee.

He said Wednesday that one of McCain’s potential fall opponents, Barack Obama, had “sort of become the pied piper of American politics - a great speaker. He draws huge crowds.” Dole also said that if Obama is the nominee, age could become an issue in the campaign.

If his White House bid is successful, McCain would be the oldest candidate elected to his first term.

Dole told King that Hillary Clinton can “play the experience card, but on the other hand I think Obama would say it’s not so much somebody’s experience, it’s your judgment that counts. It’s not who picks up the phone, it’s what you do say when you pick it up.’’

He also predicted that the Democratic race “is going to get pretty rough and tumble in the next 30, 40, 50 days."

– CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand