CNN Correspondent Now the Communist Candidate in El Salvador

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The presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the communist revolutionaries in El Salvador the Reagan administration battled in the 1980s, is, a Monday Washington Post story noted, “a former correspondent for CNN en Espanol.” In the March 9 article, “In El Salvador Vote, Big Opportunity for Leftists,” reporter William Booth relayed from San Salvador that the journalist-turned-politician “considers himself to be El Salvador's Barack Obama.” Booth relayed:

After a 12-year civil war and a peace undermined by soaring crime, leftists in El Salvador are on the verge of completing a remarkable journey from armed struggle to the presidential palace.

Their candidate is a veteran TV broadcaster and morning talk show host, Mauricio Funes, whose Facebook page lists his political views as “other.” Funes, 49, a former correspondent for CNN en Español, was recently recruited by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the revolutionary group-turned-mainstream political party that is favored by polls to win the presidency in a vote scheduled for March 15....

Funes considers himself to be El Salvador's Barack Obama -- an agent of change in a country beset by the highest murder rate in Latin America and an economy in free fall.

The comparison is overt: Funes and the FMLN use images of Obama in their ads (despite objections by the U.S. State Department), saying both candidates were smeared by their opponents as allies of extremists. The FMLN television spots complete the link by employing the Obama slogan in English and Spanish, vowing "Yes, we can!"...

Hat tip: 'The Gentleman from Lickskillet' comic strip's Steve Allen.