As he weathered his first political crisis this week, Maryland's new governor proved one thing: He is cool under fire.
If Parris N. Glendening was fazed by the furor that erupted over the lucrative benefits and early pension payments that he and his staff qualified for when they left Prince George's County government, he never showed it.
His strategy was to react quickly to try to push the story off the front pages by doing whatever was necessary to minimize the political damage to his two-week-old administration.
There was no sense of panic, no emotional outbursts, no attempts to castigate the press.
He approached the issue as a public relations problem, a question of what was legal and what was not. He said he and his friends had not tried to feather their own nests -- an accusation that has kept the radio talk shows abuzz for a week.
Like the political science professor he is, Mr. Glendening reacted to the upheaval with a methodical, pragmatic style, dealing with the issue as he would any other governmental hurdle.
Whether the action he and his aides took -- giving back thousands of dollars in benefits they could have collected -- is enough to mollify the public remains to be seen.
But his response demonstrates his willingness to bend, even on an issue in which he repeatedly declared he and his aides had done nothing wrong.
"I've said repeatedly, 'We don't have a monopoly on truth,' " the governor said. "If I make a mistake, or if we have to backtrack on something, we will do it. That's why we stepped right up. We're not trying to fight it or anything like that."
The ruckus was over a supplemental county pension program set up when Mr. Glendening was county executive that provided enhanced benefits for anyone with at least 15 years of service who was "involuntarily separated" from government service.
Mr. Glendening qualified for the immediate pension payments because he was "involuntarily separated" by voter-imposed term limits that prohibited him from running again for county executive. Three of his aides qualified because Mr. Glendening asked for their resignations several days before he was elected governor.
At midweek, as the story still was unfolding and when other politicians might have ducked for cover, Mr. Glendening invited a handful of reporters to lunch. He calmly discussed his political problem with the detachment of someone who was talking about somebody else.
If it wasn't this problem, he said nonchalantly, then it probably would be another.
Mr. Glendening's aides said they first got wind of the impending news story when reporters started calling about the pensions on the evening of Jan. 26, a Thursday.
The next day, shortly before the governor was to appear at a news conference in Suitland on an unrelated topic, Tim Ayers, his communications director, drove by the governor's University Park house to brief him on the types of questions he might be asked about the pension issue.
"His first reaction was, 'Hey, it's legal. We were very upfront [when the pension plan was approved, and the benefits] applied across the board. I don't see what the issue is,' " Mr. Ayers recalled.
He said no one expected stories about the pension payments to be carried on the front pages of The Sun and The Washington Post the next day.
"Clearly, Saturday morning was quite a surprise to see it had that kind of play," Mr. Ayers said.
By the time follow-up stories appeared Sunday, the Glendening team realized trouble was brewing and began talking about how to respond.
The governor was in Washington attending his first National Governors' Association meeting. That evening, chief of staff Major F. Riddick Jr. and other aides drove there to meet with him and figure out what to do.
They agreed that the governor, Mr. Riddick and two other aides who were eligible for the pension benefits would give up those payments until they left state service or turned 55, whichever occurred first.
They would make the announcement first thing Monday morning -- or, as Mr. Glendening emphasized several times, "in literally the first hour of work of the first working day" after the story broke in Saturday papers.
Sunday night, the governor called his speech writer, Brenda Duval, at home and had her draft some remarks for the next morning. Mr. Ayers said the goal was to "do what we can to have this not be a story, even though [the pension and benefits program] is legal."
Throughout, the governor's aides say, Mr. Glendening never got emotional or angry, although Mr. Ayers said at one point he got "irritated" at the repeated questioning from one reporter.
"It was a measured response," Mr. Ayers said. "It was, 'Look, I didn't do anything illegal. I did everything right. But . . . I'm still getting hammered in the newspapers and it is not worth it.' "
After announcing the pension give-backs Monday, the Glendening camp thought it could "ride it out." But the story shifted to the large amounts of unused vacation and sick leave claimed by Mr. Riddick, Personnel Secretary-designee Michael J. Knapp and Deputy Chief of Staff Michele T. Rozner.
The governor, Mr. Ayers said, believed that the aides earned the vacation and sick leave payments and were entitled to them. As late as his lunch with reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Glendening said he had no intention of asking the three to give back any of the money.
'Tired of getting hit'
Mr. Riddick initially resisted as well, saying he was being penalized for being healthy.
But the bad publicity began to take its toll, especially on Mr. Knapp, who still must go before the state Senate for confirmation.
"The three other people just got real tired of getting hit," Mr. Ayers recalled. After everyone went home Tuesday, he said, "Major and Knapp came to the very same conclusion at night, alone."
The next morning they decided to give back the portion of their sick leave payments that was doubled because, technically, they were "involuntarily separated" from their county jobs when Mr. -- Glendening asked for their resignations. Ms. Rozner agreed to go along.
Mr. Ayers said the only comparable political problem Mr. Glendening faced during his years as county executive involved the death of a black motorist after a scuffle with a white police officer. Although all charges against the policeman were dropped, Mr. Glendening still felt compelled to respond to the fury of the county's black community.
He did so by agreeing to form a Citizen Oversight Panel to review complaints against the police, something the police had opposed and that he had vowed not to do.
Herb Smith, a political science professor at Western Maryland College, said, "Every administration has its first mistake." He said Mr. Glendening responded to this one more the way John F. Kennedy responded to the Bay of Pigs fiasco than the way Bill Clinton responded to the furor over his policy on gays in the military.
"Kennedy got on it. 'It was my fault. It was my mistake.' And his poll numbers went up," Mr. Smith said. "Clinton prolonged it, soul-searching, protracted. The rule is, when you goof, cut your losses."
Mr. Glendening seems to agree.
"In the big picture of things, the issue is how I do with the well-being of the state during my four years of stewardship," he ++ said. "If I do well, as I believe I will, then this becomes a footnote. If I do poorly, then this is irrelevant."