Karl Rove ‘flat-out lying’ about Hillary’s health: Clinton camp

GOP activist Karl Rove is being accused of gutter politics in a response by Hillary Clinton’s reps after remarks last week, reported by Page Six, that the former secretary of state may have brain damage from a blood clot she suffered in 2012.

“From the moment this happened 17 months ago, the right has politicized her health,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement. “First they accused her of faking it. Now they’ve resorted to the other extreme — and are flat-out lying … All he wants to do is inject the issue into the echo chamber, and he’s succeeding.”

This comes in response to Rove’s comments at a conference in Los Angeles last week: “Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she’s wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what’s up with that.”

Rove never said she had "brain damage," just that if she had an incident this serious and is running for president, voters should know about it.

Maybe so, but at best, it would be jumping the gun and is entirely unnecessary, and may now be used as a discreditable distraction, like Romney's "47 percent" comment. At worst, a lot of time will be spent on chasing a "birth certificate" type issue, with the great potential of offending or putting off the very voters we should be able to attract — whether she runs or not in 2016. This is one of those micro-issues that Dems usually latch onto and may affect outcomes of some elections.

From Newt Gingrich: 'Offended' by Karl Rove remarks - Politico, by Lucy McCalmont, May 13, 2014

Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that he was "deeply offended" by Karl Rove's comments questioning whether Hillary Clinton suffered a brain injury.
"I am totally opposed and deeply offended by Karl Rove's comments about Secretary Clinton," the former House speaker and 2012 presidential candidate posted during a Q & A on his Facebook page. "I have many policy disagreements with Hillary[,] but this kind of personal charge is exactly whats wrong with [A]merican politics."
Gingrich called on Rove to apologize and stop discussing Clinton's health, adding he disliked such questions when Ronald Reagan ran for president.
"I was angry when people did this to Reagan in 1980 and I am angry when they do it to her today," Gingrich said. ..... < snip >
..... "This is an absurdity and it typifies the Republican consulting class, which wants to be negative, narrow, personal, avoid ideas, and not have to wrestle with the big issues," he said on "Crossfire."
He added, "To bring up that kind of thing and suggest that kind of thing is what keeps a lot of decent people from getting in public life, because it ain't worth the pain of that kind of attack."

Methinks, he has very good points about GOP political consultant class (Rove et al) and about debating easily winnable issues, ideas and substance vs arguing style and personal attacks. Republicans — politicians and their consultants — with the few exceptions, seem to be pretty bad at both.

I think no one really disagrees that Rove threw a nasty curve that makes Republicans look desperate, like they can’t beat her on merit and on the issues.

His mistake was in not paying off some foreign correspondent to plant this concern in the public square.

Btw, Brit Hume stated tonight that Hillary is not healthy.
Where did that come from? Seems everyone in DC knows something certain that has never been reported to the public.

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