"Independent" is meaningless

So the Senate just passed a bill that will in part deny suspects the right of habeas corpus and allow the President to set interrogation rules (which in itself wouldn't be terrible if our current leader didn't openly wonder what "outrages on human dignity" meant). While not a single person has been put on trial for charges stemming from 9/11, that's over 5 years for some detainees, this bill was shoved through Congress right before a mid-term election and was obviously designed with the goal of making Democrats look "weak" on "terror". This is very clear with statements like this:

“It is a kind of difficult vote to explain, at least where I come from,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

Well, Senator, you should be coming from a background of being a judge, but fucking with some of the most fundamental bedrocks of our judicial system to make some people look like pussies because they are the ones not scared shitless, yeah, it's hard to explain.

This shameful act, one which will probably be challanged immediately and thrown back to Congress to rewrite anyway, was brought to us by the "independents" as David Broder has classified them. You know, people like Lieberman, who get all worked up about video game violence, but don't seem to be that bothered by waterboarding.

Apparently, being mad about what happens these days makes you just some angry loser according to Broder. But real "independents" like Schwarzenegger, they're the future. You see, Schwarzenengger is an independent not because he took his humiliating defeat in 2005 as a sign people don't support his right-wing policies, but because he:

..now works comfortably, convivially, on forging compromises with the very same Democratic legislators and lobbyists he once tried to run out of town. In turn, they have responded by cooperating instead of conniving to defeat or embarrass him.....Schwarzenegger is providing his party -- and the country -- with an object lesson in how to survive and thrive in that kind of independent political environment. Others will have to learn.

Don't understand how listening to a majority of your constituents is somehow "independent" and not just a sign Republican talking points won't just work? Well, obviously you don't understand the need to debase our legal system because THEY MIGHT KILL US ALL!