In a TV ad, John McCain listed Bill Daley as a lobbyist which has drawn a shout of anger and resentment from Daley since he has never been registered as a lobbyist. The shout he gave off was that of a wounded animal, unjustly shot at, in a forest.

Dear me, as one who went to Washington weekly as a lobbyist for Quaker Oats for 27 years and would frequently see Bill Daley on the early morning UAL or American Airlines 7:30 a.m. Red Eye, I am utterly aghast that all the while, big firms were sending Bill Daley to D. C. because of his expertise on the technical end of Big Business…and not because his name was Daley, that he was the mayor’s son and mayor’s brother but because he was so expert in business economics.

All the time I thought it was because he was an expert at plying his trade with Democratic power brokers who would recall his surname with fondness.

That is amazing to me and I apologize fully to Mr. Daley since I…with my cynical Chicago upbringing…figured that a top son of the old Mayor might be hired by SBC and the others for his savvy with Democratic pols.

All the times I saw him chomping steaks with Democratic power lords at Morton’s of Chicago on the edge of Georgetown and tippling drinks at Hill fund-raisers he was sharing his great knowledge of the economy and his scientific expertise with the telecommunications industry without any political connection…and was not seeking favor with the power people which is what a lobbyist is supposed to do.

How I misjudged Daley all these years! Indeed, John McCain should be ashamed of himself for saying that Daley was lobbyist.

Ergo: Daley was NOT a lobbyist or applied pressure or gratification to lawmakers in return for favors because Daley never registered as a lobbyist! It means that all the times I saw him when we were both in Washington he was there as either as an economic expert or because he wished to suck in the grandeur of the beautiful marble buildings…see each time the original parchment of the Declaration in Archives…thrill at the grandeur of the paintings on the walls of the National Gallery bestowed on the nation by Mr. Mellon.

I had thought otherwise: so sorry. It is indeed gratifying to see his anger at being singled out as having been hired as a lobbyist when he didn’t fill out the lobbying forms and hence could not be a lobbyist. That proves McCain is a liar, right?

Well that’s what the Chicago press thinks…and you know the Chicago press fully trusts that a Daley assigned to Washington is not a lobbyist and isn’t muscling for his clients because, after all, he didn’t file a lobbyist’s registration fee. That is straight out of Joel Weisman.

Not to do that would be to misrepresent his calling…to be something he is not… and a Daley wouldn’t do that would he? I know Lynn Sweet believes that because she has written that Daley was not a lobbyist. But I wonder after she wrote the piece, how long it took until her paroxyms of hilarity subsided.

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Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Chicago Daily Observer Editorial Board