In a move reminiscent of the Terry Schiavo episode-in which Senator Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican, assumed the power to diagnose people via television-right-wing strategist Karl Rove is spending his time on the speaker circuit telling people Hillary Clinton might have brain damage.
Why, pray tell? After suffering from a blood clot in 2012 that delayed her congressional testimony about Benghazi, Clinton came back "after 30 days in the hospital ... wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury." "We need to know what's up with that," Rove said at a conference last week. (The New York Post reported his comments today.)
Except it was three days later. And as far as anyone knows, there are no special glasses for people who've had a brain injury.
Is this Rove, cartoon supervillain, at work? Former George W. Bush Communications Director Nicolle Wallace, who worked with Rove in the White House, says it was "a deliberate strategy on his part to raise [Clinton's] health as an issue."
Ann Althouse points out that the country is going to discuss Hillary's age and health with or without Rove playing medical-mystery detective. "Bring up that subject now and you sound like an oily, unsavory Republican political operative." In other words, "You sound like Karl Rove."
Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says Clinton seems just fine.
At today's White House briefing, Obama Spokesperson Jay Carney let Rove have it: "Dr. Rove might have been the last person in America on election night to acknowledge and recognize that the President won reelection, including the state of Ohio, so we'll leave it at that."
But, wait: You know when else she was wearing those same glasses? When she left Libya. You know what's there, right? Benghazi! It's all falling into place.
"Karl Rove has deceived the country for years, but there are no words for this level of lying," responds a spokesperson for the Clintons. "She is 100 percent. Period."
