MASQUERADE

How many gaffes and factual errors will be heard in tomorrow night's third presidential debate? It's anyone's guess. But our hothead Ignoramus in Chief is sure to make the most of his chance to display more of them.

Which reminds me: Steven Lubet, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University, picked up on the ninny's remark in the second debate about the Dred Scott case and filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court, but completely missed the intention behind it.

The professor laments the ninny's "woeful ignorance of American history" and points out that his understanding is upside down and backwards. "This is no small matter," Lubet writes. "The president must defend and uphold the United States Constitution, so it seems pretty reasonable to expect him to know something about it, not to mention the causes of the Civil War."

He's correct, of course. It is no small matter. But Lubet apparently doesn't realize that this time the ninny's remark was code masquerading as ignorance, a signal to his anti-abortion base. Lubet must have missed Joe Buck's post on Saturday at Kicking Ass, Daily Dispatches From the DNC:

Some of you might be wondering why [Bush] brought up Dred Scott (he wouldn't appoint a justice who agreed with the Dred Scott decision). This was code. To break the code, Google for "Dred Scott Roe Wade". Pro-life activists regularly call the Roe v. Wade decision "Dred Scott II." So what Bush was doing was to communicate to his followers that he would appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, in a tricky way that would cause the rest of us, who don't follow pro-life rhetoric, to miss it.

Here's Timothy Noah's clarifying follow-up in Slate on Monday. It neatly explains the ninny's "borderline-incoherent ramble." I suspect the good professor isn't as Web savvy as he might be. Ditto for the Trib's op-ed editors.

Postscript: A reader writes:

You may have gotten Bush off the hook.  Many, probably especially Lubet (who is very conservative), know the code.  What hardly anyone recalls (or ever knew) is Article 4.  The Dred Scott decision was strictly correct. It is not a misinterpretation of the constitution.  The code backfired.  It is emblematic of the ignorance of its users, especially its creators.

The reference is to Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 (scroll down).

From another reader: "You and Joe Buck make a good point. Not since the Communists or the white supremacists has any speaker delved in code terms as much and as skillfully as Bush. The Rapture hides in every other word."