Which, if memory serves, includes Newt Gingrich. Way to allay my concerns.

Yet even though the Newt may have taken Ali G at face value (it is hard to tell if he just played along,) he did not accept the over the top caricatures as reality, but listed their flaws and inaccuracies. He certainly did not post them on his Facebook page to "prove" his own fantasies and libel, because he saw how absurd they were (because he is not an idiot.) Fleming was not capable of that, on an issue where he claims authority and possesses significant knowledge (we thought....)

In other words, this is not a case of a politician taking a fake journalist seriously and getting flustered at his skewed view of facts: It is a politician taking fake JOURNALISM seriously and CITING its skewed views AS fact. Far worse, it is a federal legislator making such a citation about a pet legislative priority because he did not do his homework, raising the question of whether he should be legislating on the issue in the first place. This makes Kennedy and the "missile gap" look like due diligence; at least he was quoting public CIA statements he had no way of knowing had been revealed as false. Fleming just did not bother to check, because the Onion article fit his perception of Planned Parenthood so he was predisposed to take it seriously.

Again, his prerogative, but one that strongly suggests he has no business setting national abortion policy.