After months of using his Wall Street Journal column to surreptitiously promote the pro-Republican super PAC he helped found, Karl Rove used his latest column to brag about the effectiveness of that group.

In his Journal op-ed, Rove disclosed that he helped found the pro-Republican super PAC American Crossroads and suggested that Romney has been able to focus on improving his image with voters because of American Crossroads' work:

Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.

Rove's mention of his ties to American Crossroads stands in marked contrast to numerous previous columns in which neither he nor the Journal made such a disclosure. The Journal's failure to disclose Rove's ties has drawn harsh criticism from editorial page editors at America's top newspapers.

Rove's disclosure in his most recent column does little to mitigate the Journal's ethics problem. In fact it highlights the Journal's continuing Rove problem.

In an August 8 column, for instance, Rove did not disclose his ties, but gave almost the same analysis as he did in his latest column. Rove said that the Romney campaign was focusing on running more positive ads, while “outside groups” can do a better job of “highlighting Mr. Obama's failures.”

In a number of other columns, Rove has used his Journal columns to help his organizations financially and to help accomplish the ends of his organizations, the defeat of President Obama.