[Lexinom]

plus that whole bit about the Dred Scott decision was just damn bizarre.

That was imho the most powerful moment of the whole evening, but one needed to read between the lines. Here's a hint: Can you think of another case in American judicial history involving the relegation of an entire group of people to the status of "property". It was brilliantly veiled, but few people saw it. It will become clearer over time; it must.

[Aetius]

But most people listening probably didn't even know what that case was about. It would be better to bring to light exactly what the consequences of judicial activism would be on today's hot-button issues, and that Kerry picks would not doubt indulge in such activism because it is the only realm of govt in which the Left can win on these issues because they know they have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people.

[dufekin]

Dred Scott was an overt and sympathetic appeal to voters of color. I'd opine that he should have used Plessey v. Ferguson (1896) or Cummings v. County Board of Education (1898) instead of Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) because the latter decision predated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Civil War. The two segregation decisions, however, clearly contravened the Constitution--especially the 1898 decision, which ruled that blacks could be excluded from public education because they could pay tuition at private schools, which generally didn't even exist (like many poor blacks' financial wherewithal to afford such education, if theoretically it were available). Bush has to convince black Americans that he isn't a segregationist, as the Democrat media have persuaded them to believe.

But the slavery decision also might click into the Sudan issue.