Repeating a tasteless deception that was already exposed during the Minnesota Senate campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee this morning released a new web video that uses footage designed to make Al Franken look like a crazed attack dog without disclosing that the footage actually shows Franken telling an endearing story about Paul Wellstone and his son.

Here's the new NRSC ad:

Here's the problem: during the campaign, Franken used to tell this story about how, when Wellstone's son David was a high school cross-country runner, Paul Wellstone used to run alongside his son over the final leg of the race, jumping and gesticulating and encouraging his son to pass the runner in front of him with the phrase "you can take this guy, you can take him!"

When he told the story (often, apparently) Franken would jump up and down and swing his arms portraying the legendary Wellstonian enthusiasm. When the Norm Coleman campaign wanted to portray Franken as a crazed attack dog, they used the footage in an ad, with the sound off. Franken aired a reply ad, which showed the footage with the sound on, in context, so it was clearly an homage to the late senator. Here's that very effective Franken rebuttal ad:

If you go back to the new NRSC video, you can see it's the same footage. You can even read Franken's lips saying "you can take this guy." But, of course, for their current purposes, NRSC makes it appear that this is just the way Franken looks when he's excited, who knows what he might do on the Senate floor?

I sought a comment from NRSC spokester Brian Walsh, who isn't disputing that the footage comes from the Franken-doing-Wellstone stories. Walsh referred me to this statement:

“It’s surprising that the Democrats would take offense at some inaudible b-roll of Al Franken leftover from last cycle. I’d argue we were more respectful than we could have been considering some of the other photos of Al Franken taken over the years that might have been used as b-roll instead. We’ll certainly consider substituting it for this one if they would prefer though.”

The "this one" photo, also apparently a fake.

Spokester Walsh also said: "We'd like to thank the Democrats for ensuring that our web video is receiving so much coverage today."

The rest of the NRSC video is also pretty amazing. The clear meaning is that the Republicans are conceding control of the entire U.S. government for the next year and a half. The message is: Anything that goes wrong is the Democrats' fault, because they now have a 60-vote Senate majority (to go with a big House majority and control of the White House.)

"They own everything, and have no one to blame now," says the ad about the Democrats. "Their taxes. Their record deficits. Their failed economy."

Apparently the NRSC missed the memo about the new bipartisanship and has decided that share of responsibility for the nation's problems may have carried over from previous Congresses and administrations has now expired.