By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 14, 2006

History may conclude that the sum of William Donald Schaefer's political career may be greater than its parts, but it's the parts we're going to remember.

All the triumphs and peccadilloes that piled up in his 51 years of public life, which ended yesterday with his defeat for renomination as Maryland comptroller. The words and deeds that left so many wagging their heads in wonderment and sputtering with outrage. The stuff that he did, the things that came out of his mouth. How to consider the service of a man who has at times championed the downtrodden, and at times afflicted his enemies with names like "little girls" and "rabbit brain"?

It is perhaps best, then, to let the words and deeds of the man stand on their own. And let history judge the arc of a man who once loved Happy Meals and considered getting a job at his local McDonald's, but then abruptly turned on his favorite fast-food chain when a Spanish-speaking employee had trouble understanding his order.

"People should speak English in Maryland and the United States," the then-82-year-old comptroller raged after his encounter two years ago. "If you are going to come to our country, you are going to be required to speak English."

It was a different voice, a more sullen tone, from the once-beloved pol who presented himself as the new governor, dressed in a white admiral's uniform with gold epaulets, packed in a crate labeled "Baltimore's Gift to Maryland." Who, 25 years ago, as mayor of Baltimore, forced city employees to spend the night in the house of a woman who complained that her streets were littered with garbage. Who once donned an old-time swimsuit and jumped into the seal pool of the Baltimore Aquarium to motivate the builders.

But he never was reluctant to employ colorful language and dramatic gestures to make his point. He once grabbed his crotch during a meeting with state legislators and challenged: "This is where you got me. Would you let go?"

He once told his mayoral aides: "I found an abandoned car today and I want that goddam thing removed." Where is it? they asked. "If I can find it," he responded, "you can find it."

He once broke the toe of an aide he had slammed the door on, after she declined to attend a meeting for him. On his way to a ceremony in 1991 in the House of Delegates, he asked the Eastern Shore delegation, which to his mind had not supported him, "How's that [expletive for outhouse] of an Eastern Shore?"

He wasn't above addressing his constituents any differently.

Once, after a woman in her car gestured to him with her middle finger, he tracked down her address through Motor Vehicle Administration records and wrote her: "Your action only exceeds the ugliness of your face. Have a nice day!"

After another voter wrote him a negative letter, he dispatched state troopers to the man's home to harass the man in person.

When he won election as governor in 1986, his longtime companion, Hilda Mae Snoops, became the official Maryland hostess. The two fought back after being roundly criticized for what was considered an extravagant $1.5 million makeover of the 54-room gubernatorial mansion.

After Snoops replaced carpets and woodwork, moved in statues of Gandhi and Schaefer, and painted the screens with landscapes, as they do in Baltimore rowhouses, the two took aim at the vaunted cuisine in the kitchen.

"She had to teach the cooks how to cook regular," Schaefer said. "Pork and mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. They really didn't know what sauerkraut was, these French guys. They weren't French, but they were raised French."

Later, he was called "the most pampered governor in America" by Money magazine, and he saw his ratings sink, as his second term ended in 1995.

For this he blamed the press, and once hissed at a Baltimore Sun reporter at a statehouse event, "I . . . hate . . . your . . . guts."

At another news conference, when he was seeking a ban on automatic handguns, he pointed an unloaded pistol at an Associated Press reporter, who began to smile. "I bet you wouldn't be laughing," Schaefer taunted. "I bet you wouldn't be smiling. I don't know what would happen to your pants, but I can imagine."

In recent years, as comptroller, Schaefer teed off on immigrants, called a female reporter a "sweet little girl" and taunted his successor, Gov. Parris N. Glendening, as "rabbit brain," "ayatollah" and a "pile of manure."

Most recently, it was his unique way of showing appreciation to a gubernatorial aide who served him tea during a Board of Public Works meeting that got him into hot water.

After watching her walk away, he asked her to return, saying, "Walk again," and stared as she left the room.

"She ought to be damned happy I observed her going out the door," he said in his defense afterward. He eventually apologized. But as in earlier times, he seemed surprised by the uproar that followed.

"Life is funny," he said once, after an abortion foe booed him at a bill signing in 1991. "You can hear 10,000 clapping, but the boo comes in the loudest."