Shark Week 2012: What Sharks Have in Common With Politicians (With the Exception of Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders)

This year's Shark Week festivities are underway, with 'Chompie' busting his way through the Discovery building once again in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. Hosted by YouTube sensation Phillip DeFranco, this year's events will likely pull in ratings equal to or greater than last year when it was the No. 2 most-watched program on its opening night. 

It is a little known fact, however, that Shark Week is actually a never ending event. Just turn on C-SPAN, head out to your local town hall meeting, or wait for one of those political attack ads with the scary music and baritone voice overs to come on your TV.

If you read Stephen Marks' Confessions of a Political Hitman, you'll see how negative advertising against an opponent sways voters much more than anything positive that candidate has to say about himself or herself. The merits of any candidate's campaign are often overlooked when all attention is turned to things like "racist newsletters," dogs on cars, or birth certificates. Practically everything is fair game in an election, and the voters fall hook, line, and sinker every time. 

But the politicians themselves are equally to blame for making bogus pledges and promises that they never keep. Most all of our representatives down in Washington are every day sacrificing principle for deals with beltway insiders. The hammerheads inside the fish tank we call the Capitol building are tearing our civil liberties, our economy, our dollar, and our country to shreds like sharks ... and that's an insult to sharks. At least a shark knows when to let go.

There are very few exceptions to this rule, and they tend to be on the "political extremes" which many people seem to distrust the most (socialist Bernie Sanders on the left, libertarian Ron Paul on the right). The rest of them prey upon the majority of Americans, most of whom fall squarely in the middle. They'll bait them anyway they can, changing their talking points for the crowd their standing in front of; doing anything to get a cheer.

Our current president is no doubt one of the biggest sharks of them all. Here is a guy who, as Penn Jillette put so eloquently, takes a "casual attitude" towards drugs in his book, Dreams from My Father. A guy who openly admits to "inhaling frequently" and using "maybe a little blow" during his college years. Candidate Obama promised that he would not use the Justice Department to diminish states rights by pursuing medical marijuana "offenders." 

Since then, President Obama has basically doubled the efforts of the Bush administration, conducting nearly 200 SWAT style raids in 9 states where medical marijuana is legal. Candidate Obama pretended to know what it was like to be a struggling member of the black community, where 1 in every 15 African American men are incarcerated -- often due to drug-related crimes -- but President Obama continues to exploit those who counted on him, for profit and political gain.

Then there was the Senator Obama, who railed President George W. Bush for his war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator Obama went on to become President Obama, gaining millions of votes by promising to end the wars. Instead, he expanded the war effort in Afghanistan, and started his own in Libya and Uganda. He bangs the war drum in Syria and Iran. The Nobel Peace Prize winner also has a "Kill List" he checks every morning.

Let us not forget the President Obama who promised to never raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year. When challenged by critics that the individual mandate was a tax, he insisted it wasn't. Of course now we know that's not true; the individual mandate is actually a $400 billion tax increase--mostly on the middle class. And that is just one of the many tax increases that President Obama has laid on blue collar folks since taking office. All the while, our Commander-in-Chief touts his record as one fighting for the middle class, rather than preying upon it.

Perhaps then Obama could be best compared to a Cookiecutter shark, an insidious creature that uses camouflage to lure in its prey. Like this shark, President Obama makes cookie cutter statements that camouflage him as "the good guy" to minorities, college students, and the middle class. Then, after he lures them in, he rips them to shreds.