The Today Show updates its viewers on the protests in Iran, including a new effort by the mullahs to silence dissent on blogs and Twitter, where protestors organize and share information. It’s a cursory report; for instance, it doesn’t mention the widely Twittered accusations of the regime using both for disinformation, which would make for an interesting look at the mullahs in action. It also includes Barack Obama’s analysis that people in the US are overreacting to the protests:

Obama is right, but only on the surface. We’ve written repeatedly that Mirhossein Mousavi is no real reformer; he’s the mullah-approved version of a reformer, and a Mousavi “administration” would not differ much from Ahmadinejad’s, except in tone. Getting excited over a Mousavi win would be akin to cheering on Kim Jong-Il’s son to take over for Dear Leader sooner rather than later.

However, and this is the point that Obama and others miss, the Iranian protests have the potential to go beyond Mousavi — which is why the mullahs want to suppress them. The Iranian people have begun to awaken to the fact that they can be more powerful than the mullahcracy that has oppressed them for 30 years. If the protests continue to grow in number, Mousavi will eventually become a footnote as Iran frees itself from tyranny and grasps self-determination.

No one is cheering on Mousavi — we’re cheering the Iranian people. And we’re frankly puzzled why the leader of the free world has yet to do so.

Tags: Barack Obama