Can we even count how many times our New Hampshire congressional democrats claimed that we needed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Twice? A dozen times? Hundreds? Is it safe to say that among the lot there has been enough rhetoric on reducing foreign dependence to fill the Verizon center?
So why then have the House Democrats, Carol SEIU-Porter, and Paul ‘Sugar Daddy’ Hodes voted in favor of legislation (The CLEAR Act) that would tax domestic oil and gas even more? Has it occurred to them that this will give foreign oil a distinct price advantage over domestic oil? Probably not.
No one doubts that BP has a responsibility to clean up after themselves but Paul Hodes has taken the opportunity to play word games and politics. 
Independent voices might have some expectation of doing independent things. Things like reading legislation or accessing resources outside the ones the people desperately selling a bill want you to stick to. That kind of open mindedness would go a long way to demonstrating integrity and responsibility. Or you could be Carol Shea Porter. 
Listening to twenty or so people give political speeches in succession may well be worse than being water-boarded. Listening to twenty or so political speeches in an air-conditioned room with close to 300 people who (more or less) are on board with just about everything that is likely to be said at that kind of event is choir practice. But having that kind of access to that many candidates for three hours is priceless.