posted September 29, 2012 08:18 PM            

Iran's leading news agency published a mock poll that claimed rural whites in the U.S. favored Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over president Barack Obama.

The mock poll was originally published on a popular U.S. media site, The Onion.

The FARS news agency—which touts itself as Iran's leading independent news agency while others note its ties to government—published much of the made-up poll that first appeared in the U.S. parody website.

The Onion site quoted a fictitious Gallup Poll that noted "77 percent of rural Caucasian voters...would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad...than spend time with Obama."

FARS led its story with that statement and even quoted someone from the Onion piece, West Virginia resident Swiderski, saying of Ahmadinejad, "I like him better."

Oops.

http://tinyurl.com/9ntp546

posted September 29, 2012 09:01 PM            

The most hilarious IMO (and I recall when this was happening, we were all laughing hysterically at the fundies) was when Christian fundies everywhere were falling for this (proving many mature fundies were even more gullible than kids who knew what this was, it's a travesty such people can vote when teens with more sense can't):
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.asp

quote:

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If The Onion's parody has demonstrated anything, it's that we should be worrying about adults not being able to distinguish between fiction and reality. The kids themselves seem to have a pretty good grasp of it.

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posted September 30, 2012 03:02 AM            

quote:

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"TEHRAN (FNA) -- According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than US President Barack Obama."

(The Onion story used a Charleston, West Virginia, dateline.)

The article went on to quote a West Virginia resident as saying he would rather grab a ballgame or a drink with the Iranian leader than with Obama.

The phony resident then lauded Ahmadinejad: "He takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does."

If that weren't enough, Fars continued, "According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn't try to hide the fact that he's Muslim."

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posted September 30, 2012 08:26 AM            

It is rather difficult to believe that FARS didn`t check sources, but there you have it .