On Labor Day weekend I had brunch with friends who had brought their daughter down from Long Island for her freshman year at Johns Hopkins University. Standing outside the Café Hon in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood afterwards, I suddenly saw Governor Martin O’Malley walking alone towards the door of the restaurant. No entourage, no bodyguards. Just him, in a suit, an Obama button pinned to his lapel.

"Governor O’Malley," I said, stopping him. With his politician’s gift for names and faces he stuck out his hand and quickly replied,

"Hello, Page. How are you?"

I turned to the new Hopkins freshman and introduced her to the governor of Maryland. Her dad, who thought I had been kidding, jumped in to shake O’Malley’s hand. O’Malley asked them where they were from, said nice things about Hopkins, and went inside.

I have been thinking about it ever since. O’Malley hasn’t seen me for about five years. We both used to attend meetings of the Baltimore Criminal Justice Coordinating Council when he was mayor and I was chief of personnel in the State’s Attorney’s Office. On two occasions, after he bullied one deputy state’s attorney and condescended to another, I stood up to him by pointing out the complexity of solutions he painted as simple. He confronted me after the second incident.

"Why do you hate me?"

"I don’t hate you, Mr. Mayor. I just don’t like the way you twit our office."

"Twit? Is that a word?"

That’s about all I can quote of our brief conversation. I don’t think I convinced him that I didn’t hate him. And I didn’t have enough time to explain to him that I admired his energy and desire to change things, but objected to his strong-arm tactics and refusal to listen to anyone he considered in the way.

For example, not long after becoming mayor he decided that an "early disposition court" would get rid of half the criminal cases in the District Court and free up resources to devote to violent crime. When highly respected Chief Judge Martha F. Rasin objected to certain elements of the plan, O’Malley not only sent her a cartoon drawing of stick figures to explain the process, he said that if she still didn’t understand she could ask the chief clerk in Baltimore because "he’s a pretty smart guy." A breathtaking insult, so audacious that the Maryland General Assembly rewarded O’Malley with all the money he wanted for the program. And all the money went down the drain when the flawed idea failed (though he cleverly covered it up by repackaging it into something else.)

He was wrong about Early Disposition Court, but right about wanting federal prosecutors to be more involved in city crime. So he tried to publicly bully U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiaggio as he had done Rasin, but DiBiaggio would have none of it. Instead he investigated O’Malley’s police chief Edward T. Norris, eventually convicting him on corruption charges after he left the job.

And speaking of police chiefs, O’Malley went through four of them in his seven years. Every time a new chief came in heads rolled, purging the ranks of experienced officers and detectives. One such officer who loved his job told me that after a few years of the O’Malley administration he no longer recognized the police force. The lack of experience and training was so appalling that he abandoned his police career after nine years.

But from my perspective, O’Malley’s biggest mistake in criminal justice was to deliberately alienate State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy. When elected mayor he cut her out of any crime strategy planning. He poured resources into the police department but failed to give Jessamy a single new trial attorney to prosecute violent crimes, at least until he was running for governor. He publicly insulted her by saying she should get off her "ass" to prosecute a police corruption case, igniting a public and bitter war that set crime-fighting back for years. O’Malley started the war and Jessamy wouldn’t finish it.

Overall, O’Malley was a good mayor with successes, not the least of which was building a more competent and efficient city administration, one that Sheila Dixon has inherited to her great benefit. But on his signature issue—crime--I believe he largely failed. He was a young man who used his energy, enthusiasm and edge on a single political benchmark (homicides) and alienated crucial partners for the sake of his ambition.

And now I return to O’Malley at the Café Hon. Whatever the wisdom of his being alone on a city street, I liked it. He was real and accessible. And his courtesy to someone who has been a critic (even an insignificant critic like me) was refreshing in an uncivil world.

All politicians have to stand and take criticism (and most can dish it out.) Unfortunately, criticism too often crosses the professional line and descends below the belt. Citizens have a right to demand honest and efficient stewardship of public funds and programs. They have the right to call out their leaders. But they must also respect the difficulty, even the thanklessness, of public service and keep the discourse civil. And public officials must listen, respect, and learn from other points of view.

O’Malley showed me, standing there on The Avenue in Hampden, that whatever his personal feelings, his professionalism came foremost. I would like to think that he still has the edge he showed as mayor, enhanced by experience, wisdom, and respect for others. O’Malley could be more than just another pretty politician with a bucketful of ambition. But his ambition would have to come secondary to a desire to make a real difference.

He did make a small difference for one person. In her first few days at college a lonely freshman, commiserating by phone with her mother, had this consolation: "At least I got to meet the governor of Maryland."

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