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How Iran Was Duped by the Onion

You just can't make this up. Well, the satirical website "The Onion" did and the Iranian regime just fell hook, line and sinker for it! Earlier today, Fars News Agency, the regime's media propaganda machine, ran a front page story, claiming that according to a recent Gallup Poll in the United States, "rural whites prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama."
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, gestures as he arrives at his seat before addressing the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
AP
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, gestures as he arrives at his seat before addressing the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

You just can't make this up. Well, the satirical website "The Onion" did and the Iranian regime just fell hook, line and sinker for it!

Earlier today, Fars News Agency, the regime's media propaganda machine, ran a front page story, claiming that according to a recent Gallup Poll in the United States, "rural whites prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama."

Only problem is, Fars quoted the story almost verbatim from "The Onion" (without attributing credit to them). The Onion, as most people on planet Earth know, is a notoriously funny satirical website that doesn't proclaim in the slightest to be anything different.

Just in case someone alerts the Ayatollah to this, here is the full text of the Fars story, as lifted from "The Onion":

"Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama"

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.

"I like him better," said West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski, who, along with 77 percent of rural Caucasian voters, confirmed he would much rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Ahmadinejad than spend time with Obama.

"He takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does."

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.

Surely you would have thought that even the Iranians would have realized that something was not quite, ahmm ... halal with the original "sourc"'? Guess not.

Ironically, the only quote Fars left out from the original Onion piece was a reference to Ahmadinejad as "a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed."

Guess you can't get just anything past those razor sharp eyes of the Iranian propaganda machine. Well, almost anything!

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