One of the big stories of this election is the absolutely blatant dishonesty of the Romney campaign. In these cynical days, everybody expects politicians to stretch, exaggerate, and slant their talking points to benefit themselves. But Mitt Romney is pioneering a relatively new type of presidential campaign distortion (much like he pioneered outsourcing), the Breitbart/O’Keefe-style fraudulently edited video. With much higher production values.

There’s just no other word for it but “fraud.” Romney’s newest campaign advertisement uses the recording of Obama’s “If you’ve got a business” statement — but they edited out most of what Obama said, to give a completely false impression. In your face.

Greg Sargent has more; the section in bold is what the Romney campaign had to cut out, in order to smear Obama as “anti-business:” Romney Video Deceptively Edits Obama Speech to Make It Sound Anti-Business.

Let me tell you something. There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.