Ruth Bader Ginsburg: ‘I Wasn’t 100 Percent Sober’ At State Of The Union

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s rabid Internet following is sure to go nuts over the admission that she dozed off at the President’s State of the Union address after drinking a fine wine.

Ginsburg was asked about her SOTU catnap Thursday at George Washington University, where she and her colleague Justice Antonin Scalia were interviewed by NPR.

“The audience for the most part is awake because they’re bobbing up and down all the time. And we sit there, stone faced, the sober judges,” Ginsburg said. “But we’re not, at least I was not, 100 percent sober.”

She explained that the justices have dinner together before the annual speech, which she said Scalia hadn’t attended in several years, and that Justice Anthony Kennedy brought along a bottle of California wine that was just too good to resist.

“I vowed this year — just sparkling water, stay away from the wine — but in the end the dinner was so delicious it needed wine to accompany it.”

Ginsburg also blamed wine for her dozing off during President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address.

Watch below via CNN:

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. In fairness to RBG, who watches the State of the Union sober?

  2. Avatar for jinnj jinnj says:

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg for President - Betty White for VP !!

  3. Notorious RBG was only practicing the Jedi mind tricks she’ll use on Roberts and Kennedy during the upcoming ACA case.

  4. In a perfect world, the Court would be nobody but RBG and eight clones. So what if we couldn’t tell one from another – they’d all be wonderful! (And – need I say it? – wonderful for America).

  5. Don’t feel bad, Ruth. I dozed off too.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

44 more replies

Participants

Avatar for booch221 Avatar for k_in_va Avatar for jw1 Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for jloomis3 Avatar for pickwick Avatar for leftflank Avatar for chammy Avatar for kufpu Avatar for arrrrrj Avatar for counter_coulter Avatar for voreason Avatar for labman57 Avatar for mantan Avatar for sniffit Avatar for chuck_voellinger Avatar for frankly_my_dear Avatar for johnscotus Avatar for ottnott Avatar for tomj Avatar for darcy Avatar for canadian Avatar for hoagie Avatar for fiftygigs

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: