On Monday, The New York Post’s Page Six reported that Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove made numerous claims at an event last week that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2012 and spent a month in the hospital. Rove appeared at a conference on May 8th alongside Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s former spokesman, and CBS correspondent Dan Ravviv. ‘Turd Blossom,’ as he was affectionately called by President George W. Bush, decided to use the event to bring up Clinton’s health. Clinton is considered the overwhelming front-runner in the 2016 Presidential race and is dominating every presumptive Republican candidate in the polls.
Referring to the blood clot that Mrs. Clinton sustained in a fall that occurred in December 2012, Rove made the following statement to the audience:
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“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.”
Per Page Six, Rove then repeated the claim numerous times at the event.
For the record, Clinton did not spend 30 days in the hospital. She was released three days after she was admitted to the hospital to treat the blood clot that had developed behind her right ear after she fell in her home. I am really not sure what Rove meant when he said that “she’s wearing glasses that are only for people with traumatic brain injury.” She did start wearing glasses immediately after the trip to the hospital rather than contact lenses due to the concussion that she suffered. However, that is a natural occurrence for anyone who has sustained a blow to the head.
Obviously, Rove is attempting to raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s competence by trying to make it appear that she has brain damage. His hope is this has a two-fold effect, as not only is he bringing up her overall health, but he is subtly bringing up her age as a detriment. Currently, Hillary is 66 and will turn 69 just before the 2016 election. By doing this now, Rove can sow some seeds and see if they take hold.
However, it looks like this is going to backfire majorly on Rove and any Republicans who back this play. Currently, Republicans have been focusing all of their energy on discrediting Clinton ahead of the 2016 election. By throwing baseless accusation after baseless accusation at her, they’ve made her a very sympathetic figure. Basically, they’ve confirmed Hillary Clinton’s assertion from the 1990s that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy out there to destroy the Clintons (and, later, Barack Obama.)
Tuesday morning on Morning Joe, the panel basically dismissed Rove’s claims and chalked it up to him being desperate due to fear of Hillary in 2016. Nicole Wallace, who worked on John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign, did state that Clinton will likely hear questions about her health due to her age, but didn’t agree with how Rove characterized Hillary. She said that Rove needs to get his facts straight before he shoots his mouth off. Willie Geist, who was hosting the segment, got in a great line at the end. After Wallace said that Clinton will have to answer questions on her health during the campaign, Geist pointed out that the questions would also “wrap Benghazi in all of this.”
For Clinton’s part, she had a spokesman respond to Rove’s crazy statements.
“Please assure Dr. Rove she’s 100 percent…Karl Rove has deceived the country for years, but there are no words for this level of lying.”
On Tuesday morning, Rove appeared on Fox News (natch) and stated the following in response:
“I didn’t say she had brain damage. She had a serious health episode and my point was that from, I think it was the 7th of December in 2012 through the 7th of January of 2013, she underwent, first she had apparently a serious virus.
They announced then on the 15th of December that she had at some period in the past week fallen. They didn’t say when, they didn’t say where. She was recovering at home. On the 30th of December she goes in and turns out to have had a blood clot. They won’t say where. The next day they say that it is between her skull and her brain behind her right ear. She’s in the hospital for four days. She goes home, is back in the office on the 7th and testifies on the 25th wearing special glasses that allow her to deal with the double vision that this episode caused.
My point was is that Hillary Clinton wants to run for president, but she would not be human if this didn’t enter in as a consideration. And my other point is that this will be an issue in the 2016 race whether she likes it or not. Every presidential candidate is asked for all of their health records by the New York Times they turn them over — and vice presidential candidates — they turn them over to a battery of doctors and they examine them in detail”
Uhh, ok.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
