Everything you need to un-know in one headline

Venezuela's Chavez welcomes ally Ahmadinejad
     - Reuters headine, January 8

It's a two-fer! Apparently happy to cooperate with the on-going (and largely successful) campaign to demonize Hugo Chavez, Reuters links him to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even as Iran continues to be the focus of US war fever.

However, the article itself does not say a single thing about Iran and Venezuela being "allies." Rather, it describes Ahmadinejad as making a tour of Latin America in order to "shore up support from the region's leftist leaders." Which you would hardly expect to need with an "ally."

Footnote: Bearing in mind that "leftist" is a pejorative term to many, does Reuters ever talk about any region's "rightist leaders?" Is any US-supported government ever called "rightist" (as opposed to, say, "conservative")?