July 7, 2012

"Rob Portman had flowing locks. Rand Paul dissects a cat."

Pictures of politicians, when they were in high school. Don't miss Scott Walker "the Desperado."

My favorite is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

35 comments:

yashu said...

Hahaha aw, these are great.

Don't love politicians, but I can't help loving their dorky high school selves.

rhhardin said...

You have to be so careful with plaids.

yashu said...

Paul Ryan, Santorum, Axelrod... I knew those dudes in high school.

MathMom said...

Gotta say, David Axelrod looks like a child molester now, and looked like a child molester then.

Paul Ryan, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Jon Huntsman, George Bush, and Al Gore (probably others, too) look like themselves. Joe Biden looks like he has a short fuse and wants to punch you in the nose.

Hillary Clinton looked lovely in that picture. I think Michelle Obama looked better in that picture than in any other I've seen. She was almost smiling, seemed happy inside.

Elizabeth Warren looked cute - a bit like Katy Holmes. Dick Cheney looks like Liz Cheney in that pic.

Blagojevich looks like a punk. Pelosi, Boxer and Sebelius? I'd never guess in a hundred years. Rachel Maddow got her smirk early.

Henry Waxman looks like a fruit bat, even then. Looks like he was drawn by that cartoonist who used to draw for Mad Magazine. Paul Begala looks like a pr!ck in the making.

Laura Bush? I think she's the one on the left from the caption, but I would have chosen the one on the right.

Rabel said...

High school must have been really tough for Waxman.

yashu said...

Donald Rumsfeld is crushworthy cute.

rcocean said...

Born NYC, why am I not surprised?

Roadkill said...

Apparently Santorum has always been a nerd.

SteveR said...

Looks like Begala was already a big ass hole

Rabel said...

Gore's high school nickname - Gorf.

Saint Croix said...

Laura Bush seems way more knowing than Hillary at that age. She's got a smart librarian thing going on. That's her "typical look" apparently!

She accidentally killed a guy in 1962, when she was 16.

I wonder if her picture was taken before the accident or afterwards?

Saint Croix said...

Boehner looks like a predator. That's a fired babysitter, right there. I'd fire him when he shows up at my door. I wouldn't let him caddy my golf clubs.

Saint Croix said...

Hopefully that's just a bad picture. Cause he's our Speaker.

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg, president of the slide rule club and in charge of collecting home room dues! And Elizabeth Warren was obviously trying to shape her hair into a teepee for that picture.

Bruce Hayden said...

Why am I not surprised that they missed the most important one. Here he is.

Freeman Hunt said...

Bloomberg: "Home Room Dues Agent."

Ha ha!

edutcher said...

No surprise Miss Laura was always a looker, but I thought Big Sis was always a linebacker.

And Senator Ma'am and Ditzy Debbie must have really worked hard to look as bad as they do now.

Aridog said...

And here's a cute Hillary in college.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

I would not have recognized any of them except possibly Bush (the ears are the giveaway) and Gore. (And maybe McCain, because I've seen that photo before.)

Axelrod ... who knew? Paul Begala looks indescribably wistful. Don Rumsfeld, God help me, looks kinda cute. Nancy Pelosi ... I don't know whether it's scarier that she devoted that much attention to her eyebrows in high school, or that she had the money to look like that at that age.

Male hair generally: Can we all agree, please, that the 70s were the absolute nadir of male hairstyles? Dear God, the bushiness. It's like all the white kids wanted Afros, and just did their best.

But, yes, Ann picked the best one. That is absolutely the ugliest pantsuit ever conceived of by man, Janet Napolitano. Has someone sent this to James Lileks? Because he did a running series of pages from the 1974 Sears catalog, and that is the only environment that puppy would ever blend into. Golly.

ndspinelli said...

I was hoping to see Pelosi's teenage rack.

Michael K said...

Ron Paul was quite an athlete. He still looks pretty good for his age.

Rumsfeld looks like he has a great furure. And he did.

Cedarford said...

I am in shock, at one time in their lives, a brief shining moment...Hillary and Rachel Madcow were attractive.
Mitch Daniels could not look more like a dork, and it doesn't help he is in a photo with a total blonde teen cutie.
Mike Huckabee early on learned he had an ability to connect with audiences. Has a cool cool vibe going on in that pic.
Green/Safety Nazi Henry Waxman? I think he was the ugliest guy in the whole lineup.
Handsomest guys? Romney, Pat Twoomey, Scott Brown, Don Rumsfeld, Brian Sandoval.

Biggest female looks disappointment? Michelle Bachmann. I thought she would look better back then.

bagoh20 said...

No.4 is my classmates. I remember them kids, with their heads full of mush. Those were the nice girls - we didn't hang much.

bagoh20 said...

Janet Napolitano is definitely the winner here. That's some 70's power dressing right there. We had no idea what we were doing. I think the 70's fashions made God cry a little.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

bagoh20,

I think the 70's fashions made God cry a little.

Well, I hope so. If no one cried over that pantsuit, there is no meaning in the universe.

DLS said...

That's Laura Bush on the right, although the caption would have you believe she's on the left. Nancy Pelosi was quite the looker. Damn.

William said...

Some people grow into their looks, and some people grow out of their looks. It's surprising how attractive these politicians were in high school. I'm remninded of Orwell's statement that you don't have the face you deserve until you're forty.

traditionalguy said...

The personalities were clear at that age on most of their pics.

My favorite is the easy confidence shown in the visage of of Rumsfeld, the champion amateur wrestler.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Gee, I'd like to br able to josh around with old pics of the likes of Napolitano, but some of those people have done SO much damage to this country, that I just can't.

I find nothing funny about any of them.

Seems unseemly to act otherwise. Sleeping with the enemy, etc.

Saint Croix said...

That's Laura Bush on the right, although the caption would have you believe she's on the left.

Nah, she's on the left.

The caption puts her on the left.

Everyone does captions left to right.

The caption references a look, which the girl on the left has, and the girl on the right does not.

And finally, the look she has is quite similar to modern day photographs of Laura Bush, for instance this one.

She's a naughty librarian! Ask Oliver Stone.

AlanKH said...

Young Janet Napolitano looks just like young Donny Osmond. How come they don't look alike now?

Oh great, now I have "Sweet and Innocent" stuck in my head. Curses!

Rand Paul caption: "I can haz scalpul!"

AlanKH said...

I think the 70's fashions made God cry a little.

From Lileks: Sears Fall and Winter 1973 catalog

Jose_K said...

Gore quoted a communist mediocre writter

Jose_K said...

Gore was member of the religious club? And won the Jerusalem cross?

ampersand said...

Boehner looks like he's gonna pee on that guy's back and tell him it's raining.