Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley pulled out an old sob story Wednesday.

He said he was sad and disappointed that two clout-heavy City Hall operators--including John "Quarters" Boyle--were slapped with federal charges accusing them of handing out Hired Truck contracts for cash and political contributions.

"We take these charges very seriously," Daley said. "There is no place for dishonesty of any public employee. I think we are very disappointed."

He thinks? At least he didn't say he was surprised. He's known about Quarters Boyle for a very long time.

I started writing about Quarters more than six years ago, giving him the nickname because he stole $4 million from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. He belongs to a group of tough guys on the public payroll who work the precincts for votes.

They're the Coalition for Better Government.

Another CBG member is Ronnie "Little Pistol" Calicchio, the chief investigator for City Hall's Department of Revenue. Ronnie insisted he could carry a concealed handgun, even though he's not a cop, even though the mayor denies handguns to folks without clout. Dominic Longo runs the CBG. He was convicted on vote fraud charges.

Back on Oct. 7, 1998, I asked the mayor why he provided them with cushy city jobs. He ridiculed the question.

"They're serious [accusations]," Daley said, his voice rising in mock outrage, jaw dropping in pretend astonishment, hoping to coax a giggle out of other reporters. "Oh, we're looking at them."

Later, he didn't know anything. He didn't know who could carry guns in his anti-handgun city. He didn't know about others of similar arrogance, like then-Department of Transportation boss Tony Pucillo of Blazergate fame, whose ears are burning now that fugitive Marco Morales is closer to a homecoming with the feds.

He didn't know about Dave "Pool Boy" Ochal, the political airport operations boss, who had an expensive built-in pool put in in his backyard. It flooded his neighbors' basements. Ochal didn't have permits. He couldn't produce canceled checks to show how he paid for it.

Daley would shrug, make a face and defend them. In the case of Pool Boy, the Sun-Times editorial board went out of its way to curry mayoral favor by defending Ochal. The editorial said Pool Boy would remove his pool as a sign of good faith. The pool is still there. The Sun-Times' kiss-up didn't bother me. What bothered me is this:

If a city worker without clout steps out of line, he is held up to public ridicule. He's howled at in news conferences full of chest-pounding mayoral anger.

It might be a firefighter who fills up a swimming pool with a fire hose; a lowly city worker blamed for a flood that wasn't his fault; a guy with a sick wife and kids; a bureaucrat, a police officer, anyone without the clout to make a mistake and survive.

I was witness to these public trashings. We reporters would write it down, chronicle the official outrage and feed the myth of Mayor Details.

But he'd brush off questions about Quarters and Little Pistol and Longo and the rest of them. Daley would look uncomfortable, offended that we'd ask, hurt, annoyed. He knew who they were. He defended them. They brought in the vote.

I don't want you to think this is pride talking, or that it's personal. I've told the mayor and his brothers the same thing, privately and in public. It's not personal. He's done some fine things for his city. And even a micro-manager can't know everything.

But he knew about these guys, and others. He's trusted with the public's money, and he has harbored these tough guys for years, knowing who they were. That's a betrayal of trust.

If he wants to feed his friends, then he should feed them from his own pocket, not yours. A young family saving for college for the kids, a senior saving for medicine, they shouldn't be billed extra to make some multimillionaire trucking bosses even richer.

Most taxpayers aren't rich. They're working people who can't afford to live in the city they love. They run small businesses that are squeezed, they're the renters who eat the increase.

They pay for the Hired Trucks uncovered by the Sun-Times and for the $100 million Duff deals uncovered by the Tribune, which uncovered the asphalt and wrought-iron deals, the blue bag contracts for Bridgeport friends, billions of dollars gone.

Before Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro made the charges public Wednesday, some naive group from Washington, D.C., gave Daley an award for a city Web site on the Internet. The presenter said:

"Your city and this project are a model for good government, for accountability, for professionalism and for excellence."

A model for good government one minute, the Coalition for Better Government the next.

How timely. How funny. How sad.

jskass@tribune.com