Inquirer Editorial: A bottomless patronage pit

Beyond its dubious description, the most persuasive evidence that McDaniel's was a make-work job is that it did not exist before him and - judging by the comments of city officials - may not exist after him. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the city's eternal and seemingly bottomless pit of patronage jobs.

Even if the city had a real job for him, McDaniel's resumé could not be described as top-of-the-pile material. In 2005, he was forced to resign from John Street's administration after he was accused of stealing from a nonprofit and violating the city's restrictions on political activity by employees. The Inquirer reported last week that he apparently broke that rule again by working for two political committees while employed at the airport.

Nutter demonstrated baseline political and ethical competence by firing McDaniel the day after the ethics board implicated him in numerous violations as the councilwoman's campaign treasurer. But the mayor, for whom McDaniel did political work in 2011, wouldn't have had to go to all that trouble if he hadn't found a dubious government job for a political operative with a checkered record in the first place.

Whatever murky political arts McDaniel practiced, it turns out he was richly rewarded for them not only by politicians, but also by taxpayers. And there are many more like him. Last year, for instance, the Daily News reported that 13 aides to departing City Council members were absorbed into the administration's payroll at virtually the same salaries - a total of more than three-quarters of a million dollars.

Unlike its now-leaderless corps of cheery airport greeters, the city's dreaded patronage army is not a volunteer force.