Salazar’s hypocrisy was the big winner in her race for a seat in Congress | Opinion

Maria Elvira Salazar apparently has a short memory.

Just two years ago, the former TV journalist faced sleazy accusations during her Republican primary bid for Florida’s 27th congressional district. A rival called Salazar, who is Cuban American, a fan of Cuba’s late communist dictator Fidel Castro simply because she’d interviewed Castro in 1995. One especially underhanded attack ad edited the interview to make it look and sound as if she’d fallen in love with el comandante. The spot asked: “Whose side are you on, Maria?”

I wrote a commentary defending Salazar — and called her win in that primary an encouraging sign that Miami politics was shedding its sinister McCarthyism.

But boy, do I look stupid and naïve now, folks. This year’s election not only confirmed malicious McCarthyism is alive and smearing in South Florida — it showcased Salazar as one of its most enthusiastic practitioners.

Last week, Salazar unseated the 27th District’s Democratic congresswoman, Donna Shalala, in no small part by conjuring the same slur tactics Salazar faced in that 2018 primary. She branded Shalala — as falsely and toxically as Salazar was labeled two years ago — a “socialist” in the mold of all the left-wing Latin American dictators so many Latinos in South Florida have fled. She hurled that same bogus epithet at the Black Lives Matter racial-justice movement and claimed Shalala, Joe Biden and the Democrats get their orders from its leaders.

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