Iran says rural white US would rather have a beer with President of Iran Ahmadinejad than Obama

Iran says rural white US voters would rather have a beer or go to a baseball game with President of Iran Ahmadinejad than Barack Obama

This is awesome.

You can’t make this shit up.

Well.  You actually can. The Onion did <the original story>.

And then the Iranian news agency Fars used the Onion article as actual news.

Yup. The satirical newspaper’s claim that Americans would rather hang out with Ahmadinejad over Obama was taken seriously in Tehran.

Wow. I guess my first question would be “did USA ratings of approval improve after the story?”

By the way … the original Onion article is a brilliant piece of satirical creative writing  (the Onion original: http://www.theonion.com/articles/gallup-poll-rural-whites-prefer-ahmadinejad-to-oba,29677/). The quote was an inspired idea and the use of a research source brilliant.

The article was beside the other fascinating piece <which I am surprised wasn’t also used .. “George W Bush Returns To America After Spending 4 Years In The Himalayas.”>

This is awesome stuff.

Here is the Guardian story <because they are better writers than I>:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is extremely popular in the US, according to Tehran’s Fars news agency (and the Onion).

So the white, rural gun-toting conspiracy theorists were right.

Put a secret Muslim president in the White House and next thing you know America’s in bed with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Except, according to Tehran’s Fars news agency, it is white rural Americans who are big fans of the Iranian president. They like him much more than Barack Obama.

In an article which has now been removed from the Fars feed, the news agency reported that 77% of rural white US voters said they’d rather have a beer or go to a baseball game with the anti-Semitic Iranian leader than their own president.

“I like him better,” Fars reported West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski as saying. “He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

Fars also reported that according to the same Gallup poll, 60% of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim.

Fars doesn’t say where it got its story but it seems to have missed out the equally exciting reports alongside the original: “George W Bush Returns To America After Spending 4 Years In The Himalayas”, “Neil Armstrong’s Wife Glad To Finally Get Rid Of All The Space Hobby Crap” and “DC Residents Can Remember Exactly Who They Were Murdering When Nationals Clinched First Ever Playoff Berth”.

For the Fars report is almost word for word copied from the satirical magazine The Onion.

But then, if you’re sitting in Tehran reporting the pronouncements of the Holocaust-denying Iranian leadership, George Bush hiding in the Himalayas may not seem so far-fetched.

Side note.

This may explain some things about Iran.

Anyway.

I wonder if Iran is interviewing New York PR agencies to help with their image?