This week El Pasoans witnessed a particularly brutal attack on El Paso County Judge Anthony Cobos once again from the ink droppings of Charlie Edgren, et. al., who sits on the editorial board of the El Paso Times.-Read on because I will tell you a true story from the mouth of a friend of Charlie Edgren about Charlie Edgren.
For quite some time now, Charlie Edgren has been able to pass himself off as respectable, honest and as a “fiscal conservative.” I am not really sure how he has achieved this. He has written editorials on how we need to tighten our belts and then he turns around and savages the few representatives we have who consistently oppose higher taxes. For example, is Edgren for the plan known as “Stealing of Private Land Downtown to be Developed by the Friends and Family Members of Joyce Wilson and City Rep Beto O’Rourke at Tax Payer Expense” or is he against it and therefore supports the lonely voices of Eddie Holguin, Melina Castro and Rachel Quintana? Because if Charlie Edgren, the respectable, the honest and the fiscal conservative is against the above plan to steal private land, why is he so hateful toward the three city reps just mentioned who are against the plan? Or does Edgren just tell his friends out of the side of his mouth that he is really for the wretched, overburdened taxpayer and against the plan but that he just PRETENDS to be otherwise in print because he writes what the powers that be tell him to write so that he can keep his pitiful job at his dying and decaying newspaper because he is that hard up?

What I am about to tell you is a true story. Last year, around this time, a friend of Charlie Edgren’s called my friend and supporter Stuart Leeds and asked Stuart if he could arrange a lunch so that the three of us could get together and talk about the DA’s race. This friend is an attorney and very aware of the systemic problems with the DA’s office and with Esparza. The three of us met at Cafe Central. The friend said that he knew Charlie Edgren very, very well and that I should get him on board. The friend said that he had told Edgren all about the DA’s offices’ problems and that Edgren said that he knew there needed to be a change at that office.

I said that I did not want the likes of Charlie Edgren or his paper connected to my campaign and that in fact Edgren had already written a critical piece about me alleging, without citing any law or code of ethics, that I had been unethical in buying up domain sites such as Jaime Esparza.com and having them linked to my campaign website. I went on to say to Charlie’s friend that in my opinion, Charlie Edgren had worked at the El Paso Times way too long to be respectable in my book and that given all the corruption in this town and lives wasted by the hands of my opponent Edgren was nothing but scum to write such a piece about me. And that now in light of the fact that Edgren had information directly from the mouth of his old friend on how bad DA Esparza’s office is and how Edgren agreed in private that Esparza needed to go, Edgren and his piece on me were all the worse.

The friend then said the following, “Charlie told me he wrote that piece on you because they made him do it.”

“They made me do it.” “They made him do it.” What do you think of a person who does bad things because “they made him do it?” I hear this lame language and I cannot help but wince thinking of the many examples of human beings who have gone to their deaths because they refused to do bad things, even at the end of the barrel of a gun. How many people sit in cold dank cells across the earth because they refuse to do bad things. How many people? How many brave souls?

So when you read anything penned by Charlie Edgren about anyone you really have to wonder, “did they make poor Charlie do it.” Or was Charlie’s friend lying about that? I personally believe Charlie’s friend. I believe that Charlie told his friend “they made me do it.” What I don’t know is whether or not Charlie lied to his friend when he said they made him do it. Did “they” or didn’t “they” make him do it? But who cares which way it is? Anyone who would say that shouldn’t be trusted with a shovel to dig a ditch let alone with a seat on the editorial board at the only English daily newspaper in town. And why would we as a society and as individuals ever think that a grown man could use that as an excuse anyway? True or not true.

Anthony Cobos can defend himself. He used to vote right on tax issues. His current legal woes have left him so vulnerable and crippled that I can no longer trust him. He sure voted badly when he voted to keep El Paso County Medical Examiner Paul Shrode on eventhough he had lied on his resume. Cobos is so afflicted with criminal allegations that he is afraid to do the right thing and challenge District Attorney Esparza and Esparza’s friend and ally and El Paso Times darling, commissioner Veronica Escobar. Cobos also is not intellectually or educationally equipped to combat his enemies. Having said that, it is hard to watch the likes of Charlie Edgren, who is also no mental giant, take his low life shots at Cobos and others, not allow them a response, and then cower behind the locked doors of his rag of a newspaper and not recount to you what Charlie’s old friend had to say about him.