I recognize that Obama is a more attractive candidate than Romney on many levels. He’s more personable, more empathetic with people going through hard times and more respectful of simple facts.

But Obama, in his four years in office, has overturned two of the principle foundations of American democracy — habeas corpus and due process. This is something hardly anybody talks about. They probably know everything there is to know about Romney strapping his dog in a carrier on the top of his car for a long trip. Gutting The Constitution doesn’t merit that kind of coverage.

Habeas corpus is the foundation of any free government.  It means that the state can’t seize and incarcerate you without due judicial process.  It’s guaranteed in The Constitution except in cases of war or national emergency.

Lincoln notoriously and controversially suspended habeas corpus in a few instances during the Civil War — which was indisputably a war and a national emergency.  Obama, like George Bush before him, has decided that the War On Terror is an equivalent sort of war and national emergency, giving the President the right, on his sole authority and at his pleasure, to suspend habeas corpus.

This is madness.  The point of the Constitutional exceptions was to limit the suspension of habeas corpus to defined periods of crisis.  The “War On Terror” addresses a threat that might continue indefinitely — and only the President can decide if it’s over or not.  This is a classic maneuver of tyrants — suspending the guarantees of freedom on the grounds of an emergency, an emergency defined only by the tyrant.

Obama has also redefined due process.  This has always meant judicial process.  One reason for our tripartite form of government, with an independent judiciary, is to create a check on executive or legislative power through law.  Obama has introduced the novel notion that “due process” means any kind of process he chooses to apply, including formal executive or military review of cases.

When the executive can define “due process” in this way, it essentially does away with the guarantee enshrined in The Constitution.

Bad as Romney is, how can any patriotic American vote for a man who has effectively gutted The Constitution, which he took an oath to preserve?  It’s like pissing on the graves of the patriots of earlier times who gave their lives to defend the freedoms protected in The Constitution.

Liberals think, “Well, Obama is not going to misuse the powers he has seized from the people by fiat — it’s not going to affect my life.”  What they fail to consider is how future Presidents may use the tyrannical powers Obama has seized.  They argue that Obama will make better Supreme Court appointments than Romney — and that’s surely true.  But what difference will that make in an America which no longer respects habeas corpus and due process?

It will make no difference at all.  Democracy in America will be, for all intents and purposes, over.

I had a hunch that Obama might phone in his second debate with Romney, or only pretend to try harder, having lost his heart for the job of President, but I was way wrong. He brought his best game to the table Tuesday night and he played his cards like a shark. Romney, overconfident and greedy, played the role of the fish.

Obama played two especially brilliant hands in the game. One was a devastating check-raise. When Romney challenged him on his statement that he had called the Benghazi murders a terrorist attack on the day after they occurred, Obama demurred mildly but didn’t seem to want to discuss the issue. Romney read this as weakness and pounced, thinking he had trapped Obama in a lie.

When Candy Crowley attested that Obama had indeed called the murders a terrorist act on the occasion in question, Obama went all in. He hit Romney hard, invoking his authority as President, and called Romney’s insinuations “offensive”.  That’s harsh language for a Presidential debate, and Obama delivered it harshly — but he had caught Romney overplaying his hand and Romney had no choice but to fold.

Then, on the last hand, the closing statements, Romney made another bad bet — he referenced, almost in passing, his infamous 47% speech.  Obama hadn’t mentioned it himself, and maybe Romney thought he was going to ignore it, but Romney didn’t factor position into the equation.

Romney had won the coin toss to decide the order in which the candidates would speak and he unwisely chose to speak first, meaning Obama would speak last.  So when Romney made his weak bet on the 47% issue, Obama had a chance to go over the top and overwhelm him.  Since Romney had brought it up, it didn’t look like a gratuitous jab from the President.  Obama raised the half-hearted bet and then showed stronger cards.

By the end of the night Romney had lost most of the stack he had accumulated since the first debate, and Obama had enough chips on his side of the table to keep the game competitive.  Romney may not learn from his bad play — he strikes me as one of those pompous “experts” who sits down at a poker table and blames the cards when he loses his money.  It’s rarely the cards that make a man a fish — most often it’s the fish’s vanity and inability to recognize the strength of his opponents.

Women suspicious of Romney can breathe a sigh of relief — he wants flexible hours for working women which will allow them to pick up the kids, clean the house and fix dinner before their husbands get home. Gals, he’s got your back!  Whew!