Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Was Ruth Bader Ginsburg Tipsy for State of Union?

Getty Images

If you were watching the State of the Union this year — or following on Twitter — you may have noticed Ruth Bader Ginsberg taking a little snooze during the presidential address. During a talk at The George Washington University this week, the Supreme Court Justice explained why dozed off — and no, it wasn’t Barack Obama’s soothing voice.

“The audience for the most part is awake, because they’re bobbing up and down, and we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges. But we’re not, at least I wasn’t, 100 percent sober,” she said.

“Because before we went to the State of the Union, Justice Kennedy brought in … it was an Opus something or other, very fine California wine, and I vowed this year, just sparkling water, stay away from the wine, but in the end, the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine,” Ginsburg said.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was TIPSY. (Cue “Notorious” chant.)

Apparently, her granddaughters called her out on it after the event. “I got a call when I came home from one of my granddaughters and she said, ‘Bubbe, you were sleeping at the State of the Union,” the Blaze reports Ginsberg saying.

Long live RBG, queen of our judicial system. Bow down.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.