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This Speakout has not been edited.

By John Dendahl

Is he an idiot, as U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) has said? Well, the former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, David Iglesias, is certainly on an ego trip, and ego drives people to do and say idiotic things.

I was David Iglesias’ friend for many years, including six or so while serving as state chairman of his political party, Republicans. Our team tried hard to get him elected state attorney general in 1998. He was at times an impressive campaigner and, though a considerable underdog, he came close to winning.

Many of the same team, including me, were later his advocates for a 2001 appointment as U.S. Attorney. However, some who had by then observed Iglesias’ performance as a lawyer warned that he didn’t have the stuff for that crucial position. Unfortunately, they were right and he had to be removed.

Iglesias has revealed an abysmal lack of class no one predicted. In addition to his high-profile whining, he violated Rule 1-8.010 governing U.S. Attorneys by failing to report conversations with Members of Congress, then unjustly accusing them of political interference.

With his looks and glibness on-camera, Iglesias is a right-out-of-central-casting puppet for a group — the Democratic Party leadership in the U.S. Congress — whose Grail is partisan dominance.

He told a reporter for The Washington Post, “I’ve seen how Democrats have really reached out and helped me ... The people who stuck it to me are people who share [the same values]. The people who have helped me — the Schumers, the Leahys, the Feinsteins — have value systems different than mine.”¹

The words of an idiot. Democrat U.S. Senators Charlie Schumer, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, etc. have gleefully seized upon a naive egoist to help themselves. The eagerness of this self-pitying turncoat to pummel their political enemies must feel to them like Christmas every day.

Egoist? For sure. Here he is in the same Post article on his media stardom skewering his ex-friends: “I’ve loved it. It’s a good fit. It feels really natural. I’ll tell you what, from an exposure point of view it’s been incredible. Had I stayed a U.S. attorney and not gotten forced to resign, no one would know who I was outside of New Mexico. In a perverse way this has already put me on the national map. My own test is: If it’s a show I’ve heard of, I’ll probably do it.”²

“Perverse” was a fine word choice.

There’s even more for the fiercely partisan Schumer and Co. to appreciate. One of Iglesias’ critics’ beefs was his failure to address seriously an infamous Democrat tool, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), and others for flagrant voter fraud laid before him by the New Mexico press.

Iglesias wants us to believe he was competent but insufficiently partisan. Rubbish. President Bush didn’t replace him with a “partisan” prosecutor sure to go after ACORN and other public corruption cases. His successor is Larry Gómez, his assistant, ominously a man many associate with Iglesias’ failures.

During his 1998 campaign, Iglesias told a New Mexico reporter that he stood with the “Christian right” on all issues but one: affirmative action. “I cannot toe the party line there. I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I said I hadn’t benefitted from that,” he told the reporter.³

Indeed. And affirmative action also lay beneath the later appointment he couldn’t handle, U.S. Attorney. One wonders whether it also influenced the glowing performance reviews Iglesias likes to claim.

To be fair, Iglesias’ performance was sometimes fine. I warmly applauded a road show he performed in support of the Patriot Act, for example. Someone had prepared a PowerPoint presentation with excellent material and he supported it well while speaking and taking questions, albeit from a friendly Republican audience.

But a U.S. Attorney must bring to the table talent quite different from that of a good press secretary, campaigner or media hound. Sadly, Iglesias didn’t have it.

Lastly there’s an issue of honesty. Iglesias was one of several Navy lawyers involved in the courts martial glorified in the movie, A Few Good Men. Campaigning in 1998, Iglesias claimed he was Tom Cruise’s character. Just a little exaggeration? White lie, maybe? Nine years later, press accounts of Iglesias’ failure and firing continue to mention his Cruise-plays-Iglesias story as if it were fact. An honest man would stop this spreading lie; a pusillanimous egoist just smiles — like David Iglesias.

John Dendahl is a retired businessman and served as chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico from December 1994 to May 2003. He and his wife Jackie now live near Denver.

1. Pappu, Sridhar. “The Next Best Path.” The Washington Post. May 22, 2007. p. C01.