The book that Washington Post political editor John Harris co-wrote with Mark Halperin -- called "The Way to Win" -- was very flattering to Karl Rove. So it would be interesting to hear what Harris thinks of some disparaging comments about the Post's political coverage that Rove just made in an interview with Hugh Hewitt. Via Tristram Shandy, here's what Rove said:

HUGH HEWITT: And Virginia, you’re confident about [GOP Senator George] Allen? Because Democrats would have us believe that Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are lost.

KARL ROVE: Well, you know, it’s interesting. The Washington Post, you’ve got to remember the mindset. Most of the people who are commenting on these races live inside the Beltway, and get the coverage of the Washington Post. The Washington Post coverage of Virginia is so elitist, it’s unbelievable.

More on Rove's interview after the jump, where he twists the facts in a phony attack on the Times.

Here's Karl Rove on the New York Times:

HUGH HEWITT: Do you believe [John Kerry's apology for his botched Iraq joke] was an apology, Karl Rove?

KARL ROVE: Well, I’m going to take it as such. But you know, I thought it was interesting that he couldn’t bring himself to come out and face onto the camera and say you know, I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I apologize to our men and women in Iraq.

HH: A lot of military have not accepted it as such, but I’ll leave it up to them.

KR: Yeah. Do you know the other thing, Hugh…

HH: Yes?

KR: …was I noticed the New York Times continued to repeat the same mindset in its editorial, in which it said of course the President of the United States knew this was a botched joke aimed at him, not an insult for the military. In essence, anybody…you know, they repeated the sort of tone that Kerry had, that everybody knew this was an attack on the President, and anybody who took it as an insult on the military were themselves stupid.

Rove is distorting the facts. He's counting on you not going back to look at the Times editorial he's misrepresenting. Here's the relevant passage from the editorial:

[Bush] hit a particularly creepy low when he decided to distort a lame joke lamely delivered by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry warned college students that the punishment for not learning your lessons was to “get stuck in Iraq.” In context, it was obviously an attempt to disparage Mr. Bush’s intelligence. That’s impolitic and impolite, but it’s not as bad as Mr. Bush’s response. Knowing full well what Mr. Kerry meant, the president and his team cried out that the senator was disparaging the troops. It was a depressing replay of the way the Bush campaign Swift-boated Americans in 2004 into believing that Mr. Kerry, who went to war, was a coward and Mr. Bush, who stayed home, was a hero.

In no way did the editorial say, as Rove insinuated, that "anybody who took it as an insult on the military were themselves stupid." There was no reference whatsoever to the intelligence of anyone except for Bush. Rove's phony, textbook effort to portray the Times as disdainful and haughty in front of this friendly conservative audience was based on a pure fabrication. You'd think that this sort of thing would make Times editors or reporters think a little harder the next time Rove offers up his spin for their next article.

Here's Rove's full quote on the Washington Post:

HUGH HEWITT: And Virginia, you’re confident about [GOP Senator George] Allen? Because Democrats would have us believe that Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are lost.

KARL ROVE: Well, you know, it’s interesting. The Washington Post, you’ve got to remember the mindset. Most of the people who are commenting on these races live inside the Beltway, and get the coverage of the Washington Post. The Washington Post coverage of Virginia is so elitist, it’s unbelievable. They ran an article, which was one of the most revealing pieces of journalism I’ve seen. They ran it in the Style section, but the fact that the editors of the Post would consider this useful material….it contrasted Northern Virginia, NVA, with what they called the rest of Virginia, ROVA. And they said that language in Northern Virginia meant something different than the rest of Virginia. For example, they said in Northern Virginia, when you said the word lab, you were referring to your dog, your family dog. Whereas in the rest of Virginia, use the word lab, you were talking about the place where you cooked up methamphetamine.

Rove singles out an article in the Styles section. But he very clearly disparaged the Post's coverage of Virginia politics. You'd think that would get John Harris angry about this. But, hey, dishonest GOP political attacks on the media are just all part of life in the era of the "freak show," right?