Once again Rove’s brain went on vacation.

“Karl Rove, political mastermind for former President George W. Bush, said Sunday that Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party insurgent who won an upset victory in Delaware for the GOP Senate nomination, “can’t simply ignore” the controversy stirred over the disclosure that she “dabbled in witchcraft” and has to find a way to “explain it and put it in its most sympathetic light and move on.”

“In southern Delaware, where there are a lot of church-going people, they’re probably going to want to know what was that all about,” Rove said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And again, she said it on television when she went on the … the Bill Maher show.”

Rove was referring to an October 1999 appearance O’Donnell made on Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show where she said,” I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. … One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it.” O’Donnell had been on Maher’s show frequently in the 1990s, and Maher has said he is going to show an O’Donnell clip each week until she agrees to appear again.

Rove said that in whatever way O’Donnell deals with the quote from her past, she can’t say, “These are unfactual and not true and … go to my website and ignore them.”

“I don’t think the people of Delaware have or are accepting that as a reasonable explanation,” Rove said. “And until they do, they’re going to be resistant to hearing the bigger, broader, more important message.”

I have no idea why Rove would have given the question the light of day. So what if O’Donnell dabbled in the occult. So did Nancy Reagan (Ronald did too). Big deal. Voters today could give a hoot either. Rove is playing to the media. It’s a shame considering how they went after him during the Bush years. Now in an apparent response to limelight he’s winning to shoot his own in order to get a headline.

It’s sad.