The Judge Show

In September 2005, my husband and I were living in a small town in Maine. We didn't have cable or internet in our apartment, so for entertainment it was like the 1920s and our radio was constantly on. But, because the town where we lived was so remote, we could only get two stations: npr and classic rock. Since there's only so much classic rock that one can take, we usually listened to npr. I wasn't working at the time, so I got to hear pretty much everything that Maine Public Broadcasting played during the day, things like the humble farmer, Terry Gross, Garrison Keillor and the old guy that played hits from the 1920s to the 70s (Friday mornings, I liked him).

It was also during this time that I discovered what I called "The Judge Show." Really, it wasn't a show at all but the confirmation hearing of Chief Justice John Roberts. I had never paid attention to confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court before, well, other than the whole Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill business of the mid-90s, and it was really interesting. I would get up every day and look forward to hearing the questions that Roberts would or would not answer. I was actually sad when the hearing were over because I enjoyed it so much.

When The Judge Show was renewed for a second season during January of 2006, I eagerly listened to the confirmation hearing of Associate Justice Samuel Alito. It wasn't as good as the first season with John Roberts, but it was still pretty good. My favorite part was when Ted Kennedy was trying to get Alito to answer just any question he asked and finally asked him what his favorite movie was and Alito wouldn't answwer!

Now, I'm very excited to listen to season three of THe Judge Show with Sandra Sotomayor. Of course, I work now so that makes it a bit more difficult to listen to it constantly like I did the past two seasons, but thanks to cnn.com I can stream live video feed all day!