There have already been several diaries posted on Karl Rove's comments on Hillary Clinton's cerebral health, and much out rage that he should go there. You can go to TPM, ThinkProgress, Huffpost whatever,and find this posted with outrage.
So, Let's get a few facts straightened out.
Karl Rove said the following according to FP'er Laura Clawson
He said if Clinton runs for president, voters must be told what happened when she suffered a fall in December 2012.
The official diagnosis was a blood clot. Rove told the conference near LA Thursday, “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.”
OK, so let's look at the facts here.
Sometime in early December 2012, Hillary Clinton, travelling as SoS was suffering from a stomach bug, became dehydrated, fainted and banged her head causing a concussion. She was apparently treated with no hospital admission, and thereafter had to cancel several planned trips in order to recover, supposedly at home, although this is difficult to confirm.
Around the end of December, she went to a hospital for an MRI follow up, and it was discovered she had a blood clot on the brain, which was treated with blood thinners. She was admitted to hospital for 3 or 4 days, and accused of suffering from "Benghazi flu".
After a few more days recuperation, she testified on Jan 22before the House committee wearing glasses that hadFresnal lens.
So let's breakdown Rove's statement.
Did she have a traumatic brain injury? Yes, concussion is defined as a traumatic Brain injury.
Did she have sequels to this concussion? Probably, a blood clot, and resulting double vision is a common sequel to severe concussion.
Can it be cured? - Yes, many people ( possibly a majority of living people) have been concussed at some point, and suffer no long term effects. American football players, rugby players, skydivers, skiers, snowboarders, have probably had incidences of concussion for over 90% (my guess).
Was Hillary hospitalised for 30 days? Probably not.
And therein lies Rove's genius.
He creates a premise that Hillary is brain damaged based on a sequence of events/ facts. One of which is demonstrably false. He admits his error to that one fact, leaving intact the impression that everything else, including the false conclusion is true.
And everyone goes for it, creating a mass of media coverage, which will leave an indelible question mark on part of the electorate.
Update. Reading some of the comments here, it seems to me that it is not only Washington GOP'ers who live in a bubble.
You may or may not like Rove and his politics (to be clear, I do not), but to deny that he has political skills is self defeating. Sure, sometimes he uses those skills to enrich himself, but he should not be underestimated.