Mediaboss Marketing

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