"I just want to take this opportunity to publicly apologize..."

Plato's Apology is basically the final comeback of the city of Athens in their decades long argument with Socrates. It went a little something like this:

Athens: "Hey! So we think these things are good"

Socrates: "Okay... but what about these problems with them"

A: "... Well what if we re-stated it this way?"

S: "Nope. Still doesn't sound right."

A: "Oh come on, don't just sit there being negative and never 

actually contributing any new ideas!!"

S: "But wisdom is knowing that what you think you know, 

you don't actually know... you know?" 

A: "..."

At some point, a vocal and influential segment of the Athenian populace got tired of Socrates' nonsense and went through the totally legitimate process of grossly misrepresenting his life's work to get him executed. Socrates, being Socrates, proceeds to take the opportunity to publicly humiliate his accusers, make a mockery of the farcical "justice" system, and try to set the record straight regarding the true value of his work as a public service to the city of Athens. 

Now lets just pause right here and take a moment to talk about what it's like holding a view that those in power find inconvenient or annoying. In fairness, we don't exactly live in Soviet Russia, where being a nuisance to the Regime results in getting shipped off to Siberia. That said, it is still political suicide for a congressman to grow a conscience and do what they think is right if it means deviating from party lines. The institutional design of the United States may protect people's rights to say, think and do what they please, but their ability to actually change those institutions is severely hampered. The incentive structure for the American politician demands that he or she do what she was elected to do, regardless of what the information on hand says is the best thing to do. Defying this incentive structure will surely result in consequences, though perhaps not of the sort that Socrates faced. In any case, those rare representatives that cross party lines because of an honest, objective evaluation of the facts deserve to be honored just as the Homeric hero to which Socrates compares himself. It takes great courage to risk one's life's work for an understanding that you've made the right choice.