Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep at President Obama’s State of the Union address a couple of years ago, and now she’s saying she “wasn’t 100% sober” during the speech.
Ginsburg’s admittance to having some drinks prior to Obama’s big speech came on Thursday as she addressed a panel . During which time, she also admitted that the photos which appeared to show her fall asleep at Obama’s speech last month were an accurate portrayal of the occurrence as she not only dozed off, she confirmed that it happens often.
In regards to the drinks before the speech last month, she said that “the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine.” Dinner was a gathering between some of the judges in which the only Californian amongst the group, Justice Anthony Kennedy, supplied some wine from California.
“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’s claim of having had some drinks prior to the speech might help explain why the 81-year-old jurist appeared to nod off not once, but several times during the president’s speech.
She said that one of her granddaughters had called her after watching the speech on television to tell her that that she had been sleeping during the speech, as she indicated that her granddaughter had said, “Bubbe, you were sleeping again!”
Addressing an audience at George Washington University, the justice of the Supreme Court said as follows.
“The audience, for the most part, is awake because they’re bobbing up and down all the time, and we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges (…) At least I wasn’t 100 percent sober because before we went to the State of the Union we had dinner.”
She explained that through the speech, it was Kennedy and Justice Stephen Breyer’s job to keep her awake throughout the duration of the speech. As she put it, in the old days, the now retired Justice David Souter would sit next to her and give her a jolt when she needed one to stay awake, but Kennedy and Breyer “are sort of timid” when it comes to such things.
Last year, Barack Obama told The New Yorker that the justice “is doing a wonderful job” and that she’s one of his “favorite people.”
Inquisitr reported in November that Ginsburg was recovering from heart surgery , which she underwent after experiencing some discomfort while exercising.
