Dred Scott Decoded

Remember a few posts back, when I bemoaned my misfortune at having to watch the second presidential debate? I noted George Bush's seemingly incoherent non-sequitur about the Dred Scott case, a judicial decision by the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1857 allowing slavecatchers to pursue escaped slaves into states that did not have slavery. Well, apparently I wasn't the only person who noticed and it is actually a reference designed to be understood by his religious right base, for whom it is often linked to the much more modern and relevant Roe vs. Wade, which made abortion legal in the United States. Yes, that wasn't gibberish he was speaking, it was code.