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Gingrich: Karl Rove was totally wrong.
Newt Gingrich says Karl Rove was wrong for insinuating Hillary Clinton had a brain injury. Sens. Kaine and Graham debate.

By: CNN

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Gingrich: Karl Rove was totally wrong. - Video

Smacking down incendiary allegations that Karl Rove made about Hillary Clintons health, a spokesman for former secretary of State said Tuesday that Rove was lying and that the right has politicized Clintons health from the moment she was treated for a blood clot after a fall 17 months ago.

Rove, the former White House advisor to President George W. Bush, raised questions about Clintons health at a conference last week in Los Angeles. Thirty days in the hospital? Rove said at the conference, according to the New York Post, which first reported the comments late Monday night. And when she reappears, shes wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know whats up with that.

Roves remarks grossly misstated the length of Clintons hospitalization, which was only several days at the end of 2012 after doctors discovered a blood clot behind her right ear that stemmed from a concussion.

The then-secretary of State suffered the concussion after fainting at her Washington home while weakened from a stomach virus. The clot was discovered during a follow-up exam for the concussion at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

The injury led Clinton to delay her testimony to Congress on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Republicans are expected to try to to use the attacks in Benghazi as a central issue against Clinton if she runs for president in 2016.

Rove attempted to roll back his remarks Tuesday in an interview with Fox News -- but continued to raise Clintons age as an issue, calling her injury a serious health episode.

I didnt say she had brain damage, he told Fox, pushing back at the New York Posts headline. This was a serious deal. ... We dont know what the doctors said about what does she have to be concerned about. ... I mean, shes hidden a lot of this.

Noting that reporters raised questions about the health of 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, Rove told Fox 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. ... Look, shell be 69 by the time of the 2016 election. She will be 77 if she serves two terms.

Clinton has kept up a brisk schedule of public appearances since leaving the State Department, delivering speeches all over the country while writing her memoirs, which will be published on June 10.

Continued here:
Hillary Clinton spokesman slams Karl Rove allegations about her health

Judged strictly as strategy, and not, say, for its morality, Karl Roves blast at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday demonstrated how the game of political trickery manifests itself in the Internet age. Allegation reported, allegation denied, outrage from the victimized party, all bouncing across the Web, the initial accusation repeated each and every time -- a whisper campaign given full baying voice.

The Republican strategist's questioning of Clintons health was a joint assault on the minds of voters and the heart of the would-be White House contender, and it probably worked, at least minimally, by injecting into the conversation something no one had been talking about, and spreading a negative assertion without any proof.

The New York Post reported Monday night that Rove, in remarks to an assembled crowd last week, had repeatedly suggested that Clinton had suffered from a traumatic brain injury when she fell and suffered a concussion and blood clot in late 2012.

Or, as the Post headline succinctly put it: Karl Rove: Hillary may have brain damage.

We need to know whats up with that, Rove, who gained fame with the election of his client George W. Bush, was said to have told his audience. Rove based his diagnosis on special glasses Clinton wore after her concussion to lessen double vision fallout of the concussion itself and one that was disclosed by Clinton. (He also told them Clinton had been hospitalized for 30 days, which was not true.)

By Tuesday morning, as Clinton aides pointed at her marathon schedule to insist she was operating at full strength, Rove was cleaning up around the edges. He said that he had never used the words brain damage, yet he reasserted the bulk of his claim.

"This was a serious deal. She basically was out of action," Rove told Fox News, which beneath a picture of Clinton ran the headline Health a 2016 hurdle?

"She spends over a month fighting this, Rove said. And they're not particularly forthcoming."

Barring the release of audio, it is impossible to determine whether Rove uttered the words brain damage, but its also beside the point. The point was that through his words prospective 2016 voters were reminded of Clintons 2012 health issues and, by extension, a host of loosely related things, including her age (69 were she to be elected in November 2016) and her familys past resistance to transparancy.

And Clinton was reminded that, if she runs, her opponents will be merciless and not always bound by reality.

Excerpt from:
Karl Rove vs. Hillary Clinton: Whisper campaign explodes on Internet

Hillary Clinton wearing glasses after a fall in January, 2013. Photo: AFP

Washington: Hillary Clinton has tried to steer clear of partisan fights while considering a second bid for the Oval Office.

Karl Rove just changed that. The mastermind behind George W. Bush's two presidential victories drew Clinton back into hand-to-hand political combat by raising a question about her health.

''Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury?'' Rove said, referring to Clinton's 2012 fall, concussion and subsequent diagnosis of a blood clot, according to a New York Post report. ''We need to know what's up with that.''

Clinton's camp didn't hesitate to fire back. ''Karl Rove has deceived the country for years, but there are no words for this level of lying,'' Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill, a former State Department official, said in a statement. ''She is 100 per cent,'' Merrill added. ''Period.''

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Since Clinton resigned from the State Department in February 2013, her aides have declined to respond to most Republican attacks, preferring not to engage in campaign-style rapid response for a boss who insists she hasn't made up her mind about whether to run.

Two prospective presidential Republican rivals have taken shots at her. Florida Senator Marco Rubio gave her an ''F'' as secretary of state. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul raised the spectre of Monica Lewinsky. And just this week, Rush Limbaugh said she didn't designate Boko Haram, the group that kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, as a terrorist organisation because many of the group's members are black. None of it was enough to get a real rise out of Clinton.

The difference between Rove's comments and the others, said one Democratic strategist who does not work for Clinton, is that health problems could disqualify a presidential candidate in the minds of voters.

For that reason, Clinton had to respond quickly and forcefully about her health, said the strategist, who asked not to be identified talking about a potential political vulnerability of a possible Democratic presidential candidate.

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Hillary Clinton drawn back into political fray by health remarks

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- A group of pro-Hillary Clinton super PACs had it all figured out a few months ago: One would handle the email list, another the rapid response and another would spearhead the big-dollar fundraising. Strategists touted their cohesion and efficiency, two attributes they admitted were not usually applied to Democratic groups.

But the excitement they created around a possible presidential bid had a somewhat unintended byproduct when a few eager and ambitious young politicos with no connection to Clinton or her aides realized that they, too, could get in on the early organizing game by starting their own super PACs.

So that's what they did.

And while these organizers feel they are just adding their voice to the chorus of pro-Clinton groups, representatives from those PACs with longstanding ties to the former first lady and secretary of state see the new entries as an uncontrollable variable.

Inside Politics: Rubio gives Clinton an 'F' as secretary of state

And these organizers feel that could siphon attention from other efforts to get Clinton to run.

Right now, there are at least eight pro-Clinton super PACs registered with the Federal Election Commission.

The highest-profile groups -- Ready for Hillary, American Bridge and Correct the Record -- have deep connections to the Clintons and are staffed by longtime confidants who regularly attend Clinton events and receptions.

But then there are the unaffiliated groups -- Hillary 2016, Hillary Clinton Super PAC, Hillary FTW, Hillary PAC, Madam Hillary 2016 and more.

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How many pro-Clinton super PACs is too many?