El Pasoans have tried to achieve positive change over the years. However, it has been almost impossible for them to get rid of bad politicians and bad public policies. Why? Because they are dragging around the ball and chain that is the editorial page of the only English Daily, the El Paso Times. At the helm of that page and the author of many, many bad, misinformed, agenda driven opinions is Charlie Edgren. Edgren is the personification of dishonesty, laziness and cowardice, traits you do not want in an editor issuing opinions. Edgren is destructive to this community. Here are a few examples why.
Recently, my good friend of many years and practicing attorney, Stuart L. Leeds, was named to be the chairman of the newly created ethics commission. Leeds has been a member in good standing with the State Bar of Texas for over thirty years. Besides graduating from college with high honors and law school with honors, he retired a full colonel in the US Army JAG reserves. He has had a long career both prosecuting and defending the highest level of cases. He has performed all of his duties with honor and distinction. Leeds stands above the crowd because he is willing to protect the common man against powerful, corrupt officials. His weapons are his education, his intelligence and his courage. ---Charlie Edgren was maddened by Leeds and his continued battle against the entrenched and putrid County Attorney's office, an office that has allowed and protected corruption. What does this tell you about Edgren as a human being?
Stuart Leeds contacted Edgren and told him he wanted to write an op-ed piece delineating why the County Attorney cannot and should not advise the ethics commission. Edgren told Leeds to have the piece in by Wednesday noon for the Sunday edition. By Wednesday morning before eight, strangely, Edgren called Leeds and asked him where the piece was. Leeds told Edgren he would have it in before noon as originally advised. Leeds wondered what the hurry was and he soon found out. Without informing Leeds, Edgren provided a copy of Leeds' opinion to then County Attorney Jose Rodriguez and allowed him to write a point by point response which he published next to Leeds' opinion. Edgren duped Leeds and then he duped his readers by this slight of hand. The reader who picked up the Sunday Times was led to believe by Edgren that Edgren had posed a question to both sides and both sides responded.
1150 am talk show host Greg Freyermuth read Leeds' opinion piece over the air. Leeds called in and told Freyermuth what Edgren had done. Greg Freyermuth then called Edgren and left a message asking him if that was true and to please call in. As Leeds predicted, Edgren never called in. There are people at the Times who follow talk radio.
Then, Leeds' sued blathering blogger David Karlsruhe for his defamatory remarks against Leeds. This also maddened Charlie Edgren. Edgren again used his employer's ink to write an opinion attacking Leeds for availing himself of the court system as any citizen is entitled to do. Incidentally, this lawsuit was filed by attorney Doris Sipes, one of the premier First Amendment rights lawyers in El Paso, Texas. Outside of giving Edgren a place to vent his vitriol against Leeds, the opinion had no application to the community good. Do the owners/shareholders of the El Paso Times know how their ink is being used? Was therapy for dishonest editors what they had in mind when they invested their money in the paper?
Without ever having met, interviewed Leeds or even attended an ethics commission meeting Edgren continued with his attacks. Edgren is so concerned about El Paso and having a good ethics commission that he has not one time walked the two blocks to attend a meeting. What Edgren does do is rely on reporters like Darren Meritz who in body attend the meetings and then write factually incorrect articles. Edgren then runs with the wrong information and spins an opinion around it further misinforming his readers. At the same time, Mertiz is issuing a correction for his wrong reporting. Does Edgren issue a correction of his falsely premised opinion? Nope. That would require Edgren to display intelligence, energy and honesty. Lazy and arrogant are also words that come to mind. After all, Edgren doesn't care if the few readers he has left are misinformed. Why should he? He still gets paid.
What is humorous is that Charlie Edgren must actually believe that Leeds would drop his lawsuit, quit the commission, vote for X, vote for tax increases or jump in a lake because Edgren said so. If you were to strip Edgren of the newspaper what would you find behind the curtain? The answer is nothing. Charlie Edgren is nothing. We know nothing about his education. Does he even have one? What is he like at home? Can he protect his own family or is he as impotent at home as he was when the community, through Greg Freyermuth, asked him to step up and explain his actions? How does he vote? Does he vote? If he does vote, where does he get his information to use in the voting booth? From the hollowed out news section of a paper he helped run into the ground? I have never seen Edgren, even one time, observe a court case, Commissioner's Court, ethics commission or a city council meeting. He's a real go getter that Charlie Edgren. He's an inspiration to journalism students everywhere. He's real ambitious too. That's why he has been at the El Paso Times since the Ice Ages.
Last but not the least of the examples of Charlie Edgren's flaccid pen and disservice to this community, is his absolute silence on the matter of the El Paso County Medical Examiner, Dr. Paul Shrode, lying about his credentials. Never you mind that the medical examiner can, by his testimony, send someone to death row. What would be your opinion of such a person who claimed to have a degree that he did not have from an institution that did not issue such a degree? If you the reader had an editorial page at your disposal and were charged with writing opinions to better the community, wouldn't you have something to say about such a medical examiner? Wouldn't you believe such a person to be a menace to our legal system and to the freedom of the population? Charlie Edgren doesn't have a problem with such profound dishonesty and corruption. He obviously likes Paul Shrode and wholeheartedly approves of his lies in and out of the court room. Because if he didn't approve of Paul Shrode's false credentials, he would have said so on his editorial page for all to read. If it turns out, as we have seen time and time again, that some poor soul was wrongfully executed or spent years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit based on the testimony of a dishonest medical examiner, Edgren will ignore the tragedy and cover up his complicity with the result by writing another opinion on Stuart Leeds suing a blogger for defamation. Now that is what the community needs to hear about.
Recently, my good friend of many years and practicing attorney, Stuart L. Leeds, was named to be the chairman of the newly created ethics commission. Leeds has been a member in good standing with the State Bar of Texas for over thirty years. Besides graduating from college with high honors and law school with honors, he retired a full colonel in the US Army JAG reserves. He has had a long career both prosecuting and defending the highest level of cases. He has performed all of his duties with honor and distinction. Leeds stands above the crowd because he is willing to protect the common man against powerful, corrupt officials. His weapons are his education, his intelligence and his courage. ---Charlie Edgren was maddened by Leeds and his continued battle against the entrenched and putrid County Attorney's office, an office that has allowed and protected corruption. What does this tell you about Edgren as a human being?
Stuart Leeds contacted Edgren and told him he wanted to write an op-ed piece delineating why the County Attorney cannot and should not advise the ethics commission. Edgren told Leeds to have the piece in by Wednesday noon for the Sunday edition. By Wednesday morning before eight, strangely, Edgren called Leeds and asked him where the piece was. Leeds told Edgren he would have it in before noon as originally advised. Leeds wondered what the hurry was and he soon found out. Without informing Leeds, Edgren provided a copy of Leeds' opinion to then County Attorney Jose Rodriguez and allowed him to write a point by point response which he published next to Leeds' opinion. Edgren duped Leeds and then he duped his readers by this slight of hand. The reader who picked up the Sunday Times was led to believe by Edgren that Edgren had posed a question to both sides and both sides responded.
1150 am talk show host Greg Freyermuth read Leeds' opinion piece over the air. Leeds called in and told Freyermuth what Edgren had done. Greg Freyermuth then called Edgren and left a message asking him if that was true and to please call in. As Leeds predicted, Edgren never called in. There are people at the Times who follow talk radio.
Then, Leeds' sued blathering blogger David Karlsruhe for his defamatory remarks against Leeds. This also maddened Charlie Edgren. Edgren again used his employer's ink to write an opinion attacking Leeds for availing himself of the court system as any citizen is entitled to do. Incidentally, this lawsuit was filed by attorney Doris Sipes, one of the premier First Amendment rights lawyers in El Paso, Texas. Outside of giving Edgren a place to vent his vitriol against Leeds, the opinion had no application to the community good. Do the owners/shareholders of the El Paso Times know how their ink is being used? Was therapy for dishonest editors what they had in mind when they invested their money in the paper?
Without ever having met, interviewed Leeds or even attended an ethics commission meeting Edgren continued with his attacks. Edgren is so concerned about El Paso and having a good ethics commission that he has not one time walked the two blocks to attend a meeting. What Edgren does do is rely on reporters like Darren Meritz who in body attend the meetings and then write factually incorrect articles. Edgren then runs with the wrong information and spins an opinion around it further misinforming his readers. At the same time, Mertiz is issuing a correction for his wrong reporting. Does Edgren issue a correction of his falsely premised opinion? Nope. That would require Edgren to display intelligence, energy and honesty. Lazy and arrogant are also words that come to mind. After all, Edgren doesn't care if the few readers he has left are misinformed. Why should he? He still gets paid.
What is humorous is that Charlie Edgren must actually believe that Leeds would drop his lawsuit, quit the commission, vote for X, vote for tax increases or jump in a lake because Edgren said so. If you were to strip Edgren of the newspaper what would you find behind the curtain? The answer is nothing. Charlie Edgren is nothing. We know nothing about his education. Does he even have one? What is he like at home? Can he protect his own family or is he as impotent at home as he was when the community, through Greg Freyermuth, asked him to step up and explain his actions? How does he vote? Does he vote? If he does vote, where does he get his information to use in the voting booth? From the hollowed out news section of a paper he helped run into the ground? I have never seen Edgren, even one time, observe a court case, Commissioner's Court, ethics commission or a city council meeting. He's a real go getter that Charlie Edgren. He's an inspiration to journalism students everywhere. He's real ambitious too. That's why he has been at the El Paso Times since the Ice Ages.
Last but not the least of the examples of Charlie Edgren's flaccid pen and disservice to this community, is his absolute silence on the matter of the El Paso County Medical Examiner, Dr. Paul Shrode, lying about his credentials. Never you mind that the medical examiner can, by his testimony, send someone to death row. What would be your opinion of such a person who claimed to have a degree that he did not have from an institution that did not issue such a degree? If you the reader had an editorial page at your disposal and were charged with writing opinions to better the community, wouldn't you have something to say about such a medical examiner? Wouldn't you believe such a person to be a menace to our legal system and to the freedom of the population? Charlie Edgren doesn't have a problem with such profound dishonesty and corruption. He obviously likes Paul Shrode and wholeheartedly approves of his lies in and out of the court room. Because if he didn't approve of Paul Shrode's false credentials, he would have said so on his editorial page for all to read. If it turns out, as we have seen time and time again, that some poor soul was wrongfully executed or spent years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit based on the testimony of a dishonest medical examiner, Edgren will ignore the tragedy and cover up his complicity with the result by writing another opinion on Stuart Leeds suing a blogger for defamation. Now that is what the community needs to hear about.
on January 5, 2010, 11:47 am
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