Onion article makes congressman weep
It’s hard to take an Onion article seriously, but it’s even harder if you do and you’re a U.S. congressman.
U.S. Rep. John Fleming
TheAtlanticWire.com reports the unfortunate turn of events for U.S. Rep. John Fleming (R-Louisiana) who is alleged to have taken as legit an Onion article bearing the headline “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 billion Abortionplex.”
Fleming, or his staff, posted a link to the article on his Facebook page with the message “More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale.”
A Facebook commenter quickly opined — “The Onion is satire. How exactly did you get elected?”
Fleming’s spokesperson told Politico.com the post had been removed from Facebook but had no further comment.
The Abortionplex article is not new, it first appeared in 2011, but the article was making the rounds again in wake of the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood imbroglio.
It’s also not new that Onion articles are taken way too seriously.
In 2002, one of China’s most popular newspapers republished a bogus story saying Congress would move to Memphis or Charlotte unless a new Capitol building with a retractable dome was constructed.
Onion editor Joe Randazzo said the publication is proud to count Fleming as a reader.
“We’re delighted to hear that Rep. Fleming is a regular reader of America’s Finest News Source and doesn’t bother himself with The New York Times, Washington Post, the mediums of television and radio, or any other lesser journalism outlets,” he said in a statement.
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25 comments Add your comment
Shaniqua
February 12th, 2012
2:43 am
In the words of another famous Louisianian, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.
Shannon
February 17th, 2012
9:09 am
What’s really interesting here, I think, is not that he believed a fake article. It’s *why* he believed a fake article.
Despite Planned Parenthood’s budget, in which only 3 percent of what they do is abortion, some people *only* see abortion when they look at the organization.
It’s one thing to be so ideologically opposed to abortion that you don’t support PP. It’s another to completely ignore the facts about PP because you don’t like 3 percent of its work.
Robin
February 17th, 2012
11:11 am
This is silly. You mean he doesn’t read snarky fake news and this makes him unintelligent?
Whatever.
RONZZO
March 9th, 2012
3:26 pm
i didn’t know they were planning to move the capitol if they didn’t get a retractable dome?
Avery Decastro
March 13th, 2012
5:41 pm
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