WASHINGTON (AP) — An aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton and the
White House pushed back Tuesday against Republican strategist Karl Rove
for suggesting that the former secretary of state’s health could be an
issue if she runs for president in 2016.
Rove told Fox News, for
which he is a commentator, that Clinton had a "serious health episode"
that would be a legitimate issue for her in a potential presidential
campaign "whether she likes it or not."
The New York Post reported
Tuesday that Rove suggested at a private conference near Los Angeles
last week that Clinton suffered brain damage. Rove disputed that he was
referring to any brain damage.
"I didn’t say she had brain damage. I said she had a serious health episode," he said on Fox
News.
Clinton
spokesman Nick Merrill called Rove’s comments "flagrant and thinly
veiled. They are scared of what she has achieved and what she has to
offer."
The tussle between the former top political adviser to
President George W. Bush and Clinton’s team came as the 66-year-old
former first lady considers running for president again and is preparing
for a book tour next month on her State Department years. Clinton is
the leading Democratic contender for president but has not yet said
whether she will seek the White House.
As President Barack Obama’s
secretary of state, Clinton fell ill with a stomach bug in December
2012 after returning from a trip to Europe. The illness forced her to
cancel a planned visit to North Africa and the Middle East and left her
severely dehydrated. While at home, she fainted and fell and suffered a
concussion.
During a follow up examination on Dec. 30, doctors
discovered a blood clot in a vein that runs between the skull and the
brain behind her right ear and she was admitted to New York-Presbyterian
Hospital for treatment with blood thinners. She was released after a
brief hospitalization.
Merrill said Clinton is "100 percent" and
accused Rove of being part of an effort by Republicans to politicize her
health. He noted that some Republicans quipped that Clinton had
"Benghazi flu" when her illness forced her to reschedule her testimony
before Congress on the 2012 terrorist attack on a diplomatic post in
Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
"First
they accused her of faking it, now they’ve resorted to the other
extreme — and are flat-out lying," Merrill said. He said Rove was
getting his facts wrong but "doesn’t care, because all he wants to do is
inject the issue into the echo chamber, and he’s succeeding."
White
House press secretary Jay Carney mocked the former George W. Bush
adviser as "Dr. Rove" and cited Rove’s election night questioning on Fox
News that President Barack Obama had won re-election in 2012.
"Dr.
Rove might have been the last person in America on election night to
recognize and acknowledge that the president had won re-election,"
Carney said.
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