Beliefs in democracy and in honest, unbiased journalism are important values. If the Iranian people really did vote for Ahmadinejad – and Mousavi’s demonstrators are seeking to overturn the will of the majority – shouldn’t the Western news media be supporting efforts to get at the facts, rather than picking favorites and rooting for one side? Asks Robert Parry. There are lots of good reasons for wishing that the bombastic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be toppled by the political struggle playing out on the streets of Tehran, but there is still that troubling question of whether he actually won the election. Many in the Western news media clearly have taken sides, favoring the more urbane Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the green-clad demonstrators protesting the official election results that show Mousavi losing to Ahmadinejad by a 2-to-1 margin.
