‘Pretty Little’ Aide Ought to Be Happy, Official Says

Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer was unapologetic after making suggestive comments to a governor’s aide during a meeting.

Schaefer had requested tea at the Wednesday session, attended by more than 100 people, and a 24-year-old executive assistant from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s front office set a mug in front of the comptroller. Schaefer, 84, watched her walk away, then beckoned her to return. When she obliged, he told her, “Walk again,” staring at her as she left the State House conference room.

Some laughed and others’ jaws dropped in the crowd of state officials, lobbyists, journalists and business leaders.

Asked after the meeting whether his remark was appropriate, Schaefer replied: “That’s so ... dumb, I can’t believe it.” He added: “She’s a pretty little girl.”

She “ought to be damn happy that I observed her going out the door,” Schaefer said. “The day I don’t look at pretty women is the day I die.”

The comptroller briefly broke away from reporters to talk to the woman in private, but he returned to say he had not apologized.

“The one who’s offended is me,” for being questioned about the encounter, he said.

The assistant, Elizabeth Krum, declined to comment.

Schaefer, who is expected to run for reelection this year, is known for uncouth public statements. He has railed against McDonald’s employees who speak limited English and against people with AIDS, and he has long called female co-workers “little girls.”

Schaefer’s communications director, Louise Hayman, said Schaefer did not mean to make the aide uncomfortable.