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Mountaineer's off to Freep Kerry in West Virginia this morning. She told me earlier she's going to wear Mr. M's marathon medals around her neck! (He won't let her "toss" them...LOL!)

Effin's spin machine is in full throttle this morning. After being nailed by Good Morning America, they're trying to pretend the focus is merely whether he threw "ribbons" or "medals" back in 1971.

But, as Charlie Gibson pointed out, Effin allowed the myth of his throwing medals to hang out there for 13 years---1971 to 1984---years when being anti-war appealed to the donkey elites.

By '84 it was no longer in vogue to have been a war protester...and Kerry was running for the Senate. (Remember, this was Morning in America.) He changed his story, saying he would never have thrown away his cherished decorations.

I don't think the spin's gonna work.

April 26, 2004 -- PAYBACK can be painful - as Bob Woodward will learn when "The Big Secret" (Forge Books) arrives in stores in June.

The author, Pete Earley, was hired by Woodward at the Washington Post in 1980, but then was forced to resign in 1986 after the Watergate sleuth "tried to get me fired," he says.

Now Earley's first novel features an arrogant, scheming star reporter for the Washington "Tribune" who broke the Watergate case with the help of an inside source - not Deep Throat, but "the Wizard."

The fictional journalist, Andrew Middleton, plots to have his girlfriend killed when she gets too close to his big secret and has another reporter fired, just as Woodward allegedly tried to get Earley canned. "Middleton undermines reporters who are successful, especially those he thinks are threats. He's jealous," the novel says on page 198.

The character is also a fraud, as portrayed by Earley, who makes the case that Middleton/Woodward never had a Deep Throat - just leaks from the CIA - and invented the mystery man to hype sales of "All the President's Men," his book about Watergate co-written with Carl Bernstein.

Asked if "The Big Secret" was his revenge, Earley told PAGE SIX:

"Leaving the Post was a great career move for me. I've made more money and written several best-selling and, I hope, important books. So I'm not bitter. But I do deeply resent that Bob Woodward betrayed me and he did it in the cruelest way possible.

"He befriended me first. He flattered me and appealed to my ego. He promised me that our conversations would be off the record, and then he went directly to the people who were involved in our private conversations and told them what had been said. He drove a knife in my back.

"What has always struck me as odd is the ease with which he betrayed me . . . The guy actually put his arm on my shoulder and said we were going to become great friends - and then, within a few hours, he was trying to get me fired. When I confronted him, he called me naive."

Woodward went on to write several other best sellers. His latest, "Plan of Attack," tells of rancor in the White House as preparations were made for the liberation of Iraq.

"I'm going to send my novel to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice," Earley said. "I wonder if they will also feel naive."

A call to Woodward was not returned.

(PageSix)