He Seems Nice

[Content Note: Disablism; body/health policing.]

Republican Strategist and Cartoon Supervillain Karl Rove, who graduated from the Dr. Bill Frist School of Medical Diagnostics, says that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has brain damage:

The New York Post's Page Six section reported Monday that Rove, appearing at a conference with former Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs and CBS correspondent Dan Raviv last Thursday, recently waded into the former secretary of state's health issues. In 2012, Clinton — a top possible 2016 Democratic contender — suffered from a blood clot that temporarily prevented her from testifying about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. According to the report, Rove said the Benghazi issue should continue to be pushed.

"Thirty days in the hospital?" Rove said, according to the report. "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."

After an initial trip to the hospital for medical tests, Clinton was later admitted for three days to a hospital in New York City.

Thirty days, three days, potato, potahto.

To be fair [sic], time has never been the Republicans' strong suit. The Iraq War was going to be over in less than six months; four days is a reasonable amount of time for a president to wait to visit the site of a devastating hurricane; and they're still under the misapprehension that it's 1960. So Rove being off by only 27 days is pretty terrific, by GOP standards.

Anyway.

Suffice it to say that I don't find unfounded speculation about a candidate's health decent, responsible, or relevant. If a candidate has a health issue that would in some way impede their ability to perform the required functions of a president, it's their responsibility to disclose that. And if a candidate develops such a health issue while in office, that's why we have a vice president.

And I daresay that I trust Hillary Clinton, should she become a presidential candidate and eventual nominee, to take that choice seriously. Unlike some Republicans I could mention.