Is a hot dog a sandwich? Ginsburg considers Colbert question
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked out with Stephen Colbert and answered his frank question: Is a hot dog a sandwich?
The segment that aired Wednesday on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert is getting lots of press attention. The 85-year-old Ginsburg sported a “super diva” sweatshirt while Colbert worked out beside her at the gym and peppered her with questions.
The National Law Journal noted the hot dog exchange:
Colbert: Is a hot dog a sandwich?
Ginsburg: You’re asking me? Well, you tell me what a sandwich is and then I’ll tell you if a hot dog is a sandwich.
Colbert: A sandwich is two pieces of bread with almost any type of filling in between, as long as it’s not more bread.
Ginsburg: You say two pieces of bread. Does that include a roll that’s cut open but still not completely?
Colbert: That’s the crux. You’ve gotten [it] immediately. See this is why you’re on the Supreme Court. That gets immediately to the question: Does the roll need to be separated into two parts? Because a sub sandwich—a sub is not split, and yet it is a sandwich.
Ginsburg: Yes.
Colbert: So then a hot dog is a sandwich?
Ginsburg: On your definition, yes, it is.
The National Law Journal put the question to several U.S. Supreme Court lawyers. Vinson & Elkins partner John Elwood recalled a childhood memory in opining that a hot dog is not a sandwich.
“Think back to when you were a kid and your mom ran out of buns and had to serve you a hot dog on bread, and she sliced the dog in half so it would fit between the slices and not roll out,” he said. “That was, admittedly, a sandwich. But it also was an abomination against all that is good, and inferior in every way to a hot dog.”
