Via Ezra Klein and Think Progress, Karl Rove tried to resuscitate the old tactic of associating the Iraq war with 9/11 in Ohio yesterday. Luckily, the Akron Beacon Journal gave him the smackdown:

In a question-and-answer period after his speech, Rove was asked whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war in Iraq.

“I think it was Osama bin Laden’s,” Rove replied.

Bin Laden was based in Afghanistan when he orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Bush acknowledged last year that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, but the president portrays the Iraq war as the front line of the global war on terror.

We wrote extensively about this tactic in Chapter 8 and Chapter 10 of All the President’s Spin. The White House largely got away with it in 2003 and 2004, so it’s great to see the press doing a better job this time around.