[Ed. note: We're all over the roofies at Bingham story. Look out for a post shortly.]

Here is a juicy bit of unconfirmed gossip, about the complicated love lives of three leading legal / political thinkers. From a Harvard Law School alum who was a year ahead of celebrity professor Samantha Power (one of the world's top 100 public intellectuals):

Cass Sunstein and Samantha Power are engaged, but apparently it's all secret because Cass hasn't told [his former paramour] Martha Nussbaum yet.

Well, it's not a secret any more.

We reached out to both Professor Sunstein and Professor Power. Neither had any comment (hence our treatment of this as unconfirmed). If you happen to have more info, please email us.

The Sunstein-Power romance, as you may recall, blossomed when they were working for the Obama campaign. Now, of course, Senator Barack Obama is on the brink of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If he wins the general election, expect both Sunstein and Power to land plum positions in the Obama administration.

How plum? Check out Garrett Graff's fantastic piece about possible Obama cabinet picks, in the latest issue of Washingtonian magazine. Graff identifies Power, "the Pulitzer-winning human-rights researcher and author," as a "wild card" on Obama's foreign policy team.

"Wild card," indeed. As Graff notes, Power "helped tutor Obama in foreign policy, but resigned after comments where she called Hillary Clinton a 'monster.'" Graff suggests that Power "might take a leading role on the National Security Council or at the State Department or Pentagon."

And what about Cass Sunstein? He's not mentioned in the Washingtonian article, which focuses on Cabinet positions. But we could easily see Professor Sunstein, an authority on administrative law, snagging a seat on the prestigiously glistening D.C. Circuit -- en route to a possible berth on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Expect these two to be the toast of the D.C. cocktail party circuit in 2009 -- or, in the event of a John McCain victory, the most coveted company at Harvard faculty dinner parties.

Who Might Be on an Obama Cabinet? [Washingtonian]

Earlier: The Real Reason Cass Sunstein's Going to Harvard? He's Got the Power
Wanna Be A Public Intellectual? Date Cass Sunstein!

In the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine, you'll find their list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals. The list appears here (and you can vote for your top five). Bios of the honorees -- and we must confess, some of these names didn't ring a bell -- appear here.

The public intellectuals explicitly identified on the list as lawyers, judges, or legal scholars are (in alphabetical order):

-- Aitzaz Ahsan, president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association, and a leader in the Pakistan People's Party;

-- Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate;

-- Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig; and

-- Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, who wrote the book on public intellectuals.

And here are two other honorees with legal links:

-- University of Chicago law professor and philosopher Martha Nussbaum; and

-- journalist, Harvard Law School graduate, and Kennedy School of Government professor Samantha Power.

What do Professors Nussbaum and Power share in common? Cass Sunstein, as you may recall.

Professor Nussbaum is a former flame of Professor Sunstein, while Professor Power is his current main squeeze. Rumor has it that his move to Harvard Law School from his longtime academic home, the University of Chicago Law School, was prompted by a desire to be closer to the center of power -- Samantha Power, that is.

In their paper Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship, Professors Paul Edelman and Tracey George declared Cass Sunstein to be the "Kevin Bacon" of the law. But it looks like his influence extends beyond the narrow world of legal academia, into the World of Ideas, writ large.

In sum, two percent of the world's top 100 public intellectuals are former or current lovers of Cass Sunstein. This should provide consolation for Cass, who didn't make the list himself.

Professor Sunstein, you are the man.

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals [Foreign Policy]
The Top 100 Public Intellectuals: Bios [Foreign Policy]
Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship [SSRN / Green Bag]

Earlier: The Real Reason Cass Sunstein's Going to Harvard? He's Got the Power