A Florida federal judge has ordered "Girls Gone Wild" to turn over all relevant videos in a suit brought by three women.  Associated Press

"Do I look . . . stupid enough for you?"

It's lonely being a judge.  People think that just because you get four weeks of paid vacation every year plus two weeks for conferences in God-forsaken places such as Aruba and Cancun and can retire at age 55 with a full pension that you didn't contribute to and can pretty much set your own schedule every day that being a judge is fun, but it's not!

We have to make the tough calls, the ones that always leave one side unhappy.  We're the ones who have to face an angry public whenever we set some convicted killer free for a weekend furlough and he breaks his promise to come right back to prison as soon as he gets out of church.

But the case I'm considering now--it has to be one of the most important of my career.  The plaintiffs--three women who appeared in Girls Gone Wild videos.  What is the proper balance between two of our most cherished rights--the right to film girls' boobs flopping up and down vs. a woman's right to privacy when she takes off her bikini top during spring break on a public beach?  Let me tell you, there are no easy answers in these constitutional cases.

And so I've retired to my chambers to examine the evidence away from the clash of advocates in the courtroom.  It drives me crazy--one guy's talking, another jumps up to object, then there's a sidebar--it never stops!  How am I supposed to make a thoughtful ruling with all that commotion?

I pop the top on an ice-cold Mountain Dew and take a sip of the hyper-sweet concoction that I first sampled when I was a boy on the edge of puberty and girls' breasts entered my consciousness.  I knew when I saw Tamara Engle's . . . uh . . . endowment pushing her kissing-reindeer sweater to the breaking point in the sixth grade that I wanted to be a judge. 

"So that thing is called a camera?  What does it do?"

Perhaps I'll be remembered with great jurists such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Benjamin Cardozo, and Louis Brandeis.  Brandeis was much less of a weenie than his protege, Felix Frankfurter.

Frankfurter:  "You dragged me into this post just to make that stupid joke, didn't you?"

I pop a DVD entitled "Spring Break 2004" into my video player and lean back to "deliberate".  That means I'm considering the facts, in light of applicable law.  Fast forward through the credits--these are mere obiter dicta, as we say in the law--filler.  The machine stops at the copyright notice.  Dammit, I know that stuff already--I'm a judge fer Christ sake!

Finally, I'm prepared to examine the evidence in a dispassionate, objective manner.  I see that many of the girls have spilled beer on their t-shirts, the better to reveal their qualifications to eligible males they may encounter.

Oscar Mayer Weinermobile:  The author duly notes that he's been inside.

I note that the girls shake themselves vigorously--perhaps as a sort of courtship dance or mating ritual.  Maybe I can drag some social science into my opinion, win some plaudits from law school professors.  They love that highbrow intellectual window-dressing.

A man with a hand-held camera follows the girls, cinema verite style, while another camera man records him in action.  Good idea; the evidence that the film isn't doctored is right there in the film itself!  A self-validating feature, sort of like notarizing one's own signature.

It pains me to have to rule against the women, but hard cases make bad law. 

I'll start writing my opinion--just as soon as I watch the film a few more times.