James O'Keefe

James Edward O'Keefe III (aka the Acorn pimp guy) is the self-proclaimed "investigative journalist" and youthful ward of conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart. He graduated from Westwood High School in the township of Washington, New Jersey in 2002.

O'Keefe's intense, vaguely McVeigh-ish senior year portrait--complete with Nietzsche quote--are more than counterbalanced by other, cheerier photos in the yearbook. Indeed, the shots of the future activist reporter singing and dancing in the school's musical, Crazy for You, make the reader totally forget about Hitler's favorite philosopher. O'Keefe's early interest in the theater certainly helps to explain the pimp outfit (if not the duplicitous video editing).

Unfortunately for him and his fans, it appears that Mr. O'Keefe's career as a would-be muckraker has pretty much petered out. His "investigation" of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's office's telephones (or something?) resulted in a misdemeanor conviction and a mild rebuke from Michelle Malkin - but no real story. O'Keefe's latest "scoop" concerns census workers and his "findings" helped land him and his primary benefactor, Mr. Breitbart, on Good Morning America. The host George Stephanopoulous, though, seemed to regret inviting them on approximately a minute into the interview.

Well, O'Keefe can always go back to his roots...

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy (1946-1989) graduated amoung a class of 800 students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Takoma, Washington in 1965. According to Ann Rule's definitive biography, The Stranger Beside Me, academic records of Bundy's time at the school have long since vanished, but several classmates remember the future serial killer. One woman quoted by Rule said: "He was well known, popular, but not in the top crowd--but then neither was I. He was attractive, and well dressed, exceptionally well mannered...He was kind of shy--almost introverted." According to Rule, Bundy consistently earned a B + average and upon graduation was given a scholarship to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. In a friend's copy of Wilson High's yearbook, The Nova, he wrote the following creepy bit of verse: 

Dearest V.,

The sweetness of the spring time rain runs down the window pain [sic.] (I can't help it. It just flows out).

Theodore Robert Bundy
Peot [sic]

After graduating from college Bundy became more involved with the Republican Party and volunteered on the re-election campaign of Washington Governor Dan Evans, who would later write a letter of recommendation for young Ted when he applied to law school. He was accepted at the University of Utah Law School in 1973, but backed out at the last minute. Bundy wound up attending law classes at night at Pugent Sound. During the day he worked as an assistant to the chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. It was around this time that Bundy's long killing spree began--his first victim was an unknown hitchhiker in May of 1973.

Prior to his execution in Florida's "Old Sparky" electric chair in 1989, Bundy confessed to thirty murders, but he was sentenced to death for only two. Specifically, the gruesome killings of sorority sisters Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman at Florida State University in 1978. He gave his final, exclusive death row interview to Christian psychologist and radio host, Dr. James Dobson, the founder of the conservative organization Focus on the Family. Dobson soon exploited, for his own idealogical purposes, Bundy's previously undisclosed contention that his crimes were influenced by exposure to violent pornography. Dobson has video clips from his execution eve interview entitled Fatal Addiction on the Focus on the Family website.    

Ted Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber)

Ted Kaczynski graduated at the age of 16 from Evergreen Park Community High School in Illinois in 1958. He became obsessed with math during his high school years, but he also made time for clubs devoted to biology, chess, coin collecting, and the German language. Kaczynski earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1962 and went on to receive a master's degree and a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan. According to the book Harvard and the Unabomber by Alston Chase, it was while he was attending school in Ann Arbor that the future Unabomber considered having a sex change operation. In 1966 Kaczynski made an appointment to see a psychiatrist at the University Health Center to discuss his decision. At the last minute he changed his mind and, instead, talked about his depression over the military draft with the doctor.

After a short-lived stint as a professor at Berkeley, the increasingly crazed Kaczynski eventually made his way to a one-room cabin in Montana. It from this unassuming shack that he would stage his infamous war on "industrial society" and write a long, rambling indictment of technology. It was this 35,000 word screed that ultimately proved to be Kaczynski's undoing. When the manifesto was published in the Washington Post in 1995 David Kaczynski recognized the language and style as being similar to letters he had received from his wayward sibling. Through his lawyer, David turned over the correspondence to the FBI.

In 1998 Kaczynski pleaded guilty to his crimes in a plea deal that spared him the death penalty. The former mountain man now lives in a luxurious cell at Colorado's Supermax prison where he is forced to put up with indoor plumbing and a permanently mounted TV/radio. The Unabomber's old digs now reside at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

         

Richard Ramirez

Before he became known as "the Night Stalker," a Satan-worshiping serial killer and rapist, Richard Ramirez was a troubled teen at Jefferson High School in El Paso, Texas. Author Philip Carlo describes Ramirez's short-lived school days in his book The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez. Ramirez, according to Carlo, dropped out of Jefferson High at age 15, but not before making a curiously benign impression on the faculty. Carlo quotes the assistant principal as saying: "He was not a problem child. He was quiet and shy and behaved himself. He was a very good-looking boy." The principal, as quoted by Carlo, echoes the previous sentiment, but expands upon it a little bit: "He was not a bad boy, though he fell in with bad company. He played a lot of hookie. His grades were all failing. It was a shame because he was a smart young man. He just didn't seem to care; wouldn't apply himself. Richard seemed troubled."

In 1989 the Night Stalker was convicted of thirteen killings and thirty other counts including attempted murder and multiple sexual assaults. He is currently awaiting execution on San Quentin's Death Row. In 1996 Ramirez married a 41-year-old self-proclaimed virgin named Doreen Lioy.

 

Bernard Madoff

Bernard Madoff graduated from Far Rockaway High School in New York in 1956 and briefly attended the University of Alabama (which is where the above photo is from). At Alabama he became a brother of the Tau Chapter of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He graduated from Hofstra College in 1960 with a degree in political science. Madoff is now serving 150 years at the Butner (North Carolina) Federal Correction Institution for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history. His financial misdeeds ruined the lives of an untold number of ordinary Americans, but it was, of course, the celebrities who caught the attention of the media. Among the famous people Madoff ripped off are: Steven Spielberg, Larry King, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Uma Thurman, Elie Wiesel, Eric Roth (Forrest Gump screenwriter), Senator Frank Lautenberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Mort Zuckerman.

The aging convict has apparently settled into his new life behind bars and shows no signs of remorse. According to an extensive New York magazine article, Madoff's new credo is "Fuck my victims!"

        

Michele Bachmann

Michele Amble (Bachmann) graduated from Anoka High School in Anoka, Minnesota in 1974. In high school Bachmann, like Liz Cheney, excelled in cheerleading. After college, she earned her J.D. degree from O.W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University. Bachmann's 1986 graduating class was Coburn's last (the troubled institution had, for a time, lost its accreditation from the American Bar Association in 1981 due to Christian litmus tests for students. In 1986 the school donated its library to Pat Robertson's Regent University which started its own law school, but did not become accredited until 1996). Bachmann also earned an LL.M. degree in tax law from William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law (which has never lost its accreditation). During the 2008 election Bachmann said that Barack Obama "isn't well-schooled and prepared to be President of the United States." He graduated from Columbia University undergraduate and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School; he also became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. But, apparently, Obama never picked up an LL.M. from Marshall-Wythe, so Bachmann's criticism is clearly warranted.

After a wacky early career that can be read about in more detail here, Bachmann, a Congresswoman from Minnesota since 2007, quickly became a household name in October of 2008 after she appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and called Barack Obama "anti-American" and called for an investigation of "anti-American liberals" in the Congress. Since Obama's election to the presidency, Bachmann has become a darling of the Tea Party movement and has exhibited some signs of solidarity with the wingnut "birthers" who question the President's American citizenship.

   

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia in 1961 and earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. Presumably to continue receiving student deferments (the hawkish conservative Republican did not serve in Vietnam), Gingrich continued his higher education with M.A. and PhD degrees in history from Tulane University which he received in 1968 and 1971, respectively. The woman who helped finance Gingrich's advanced studies was none other than his high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, whom he had started sleeping with at age 19. In 1981, after supporting him and bearing him two children, Gingrich's wife/math teacher got abruptly traded in for a newer model (the second Mrs. Gingrich, Marianne Ginther with whom the ever classy Newt had been carrying on an affair before the separation). To add insult to injury, Gingrich browbeat his wife about the terms of their divorce while she was still in the hospital recovering from uterine cancer. According to a Salon.com article, "Newt's Glass House," the congressman refused to pay alimony or child support and his hometown Baptist church had to take up a collection to help the family he walked out on.

Before leaving the House over ethics violations in early 1999, Gingrich led the charge for Bill Clinton's sex scandal-related impeachment. He did this even though he was having an affair at the time - a fact that he revealed in 2007 when he was considering a presidential run. On Mothers Day, 2000 the retired Speaker called his second wife and asked for a divorce. Soon after he married the third and current Mrs. Gingrich, Callista Bisek, the young congressional aide he had been cavorting with during the Clinton investigation.

The insufferable former congressman now spends his time writing awful books, attacking President Barack Obama and being worshiped by Sean Hannity - who still calls him "Mr. Speaker."