Back the halcyon days before his primary occupation became feuding with state “Chief Operating Officer” Dianne Cornwall, Mike Dayton found himself working for the Las Vegas law firm McDonald Carano Wilson. He was in charge of government affairs.

It was a good job for Dayton, probably even better than he could have expected after being ousted from then-Congressman Jim Gibbons’s office under a cloud of financial impropriety. And what an ironic turn of events it was in 2006 that Dayton would join Gibbons’s gubernatorial office as chief of staff, when the man who had replaced Dayton back in Washington D.C. and guided Gibbons to victory in what should have been a much tougher race, Robert Uithoven, was thrown to the wolves.

But now things are back to normal. Uithoven is advising Gibbons informally, and Dayton was finally tossed from the Sinking Ship Gibbons under cover of news about the one-day budget-cutting special session last month.  It was simply reported at the time that Dayton was to rejoin the private sector, signaling that perhaps Cornwall had finally won their long-fought power struggle. (After all, she got to stay in state government!)

Where did Dayton end up? Thanks to the “Inside Business” column in the Review-Journal, we now know: Back where he started, at McDonald Carano Wilson! Dayton will be vice president of government affairs, i.e. a lobbyist.

Wait. A lobbyist?! A refugee from the serially incompetent Gibbons administration is going to be hired to persuade lawmakers to do things? That seems very, very odd.

You may laugh, but lobbyists need credibility. In Carson City, among the corps of lobbyists, a word is a bond. Any perceived mendacity prevents you from making deals, and thus compromises your effectiveness. And did we mention that Dayton helped to helm the Gibbons administration, that was literally born in a lie? Or that Dayton personally fibbed fibbed to a Review-Journal columnist?

Frankly, we’re surprised. McDonald Carano Wilson is a respectable firm, home to a state senator (Terry Care, Democrat of Las Vegas) and a former United States attorney improperly fired by the politicized Bush administration in a scandal that’s still being investigated by Congress (Daniel Bogden). Plus, the firm already has a big-name lobbyist, ex-Clark County and University Medical Center advocate Dan Musgrove.

We just don’t get it. Why re-hire Dayton, after all that’s happened, in a position requiring trust and competence?