America's designated dresser-down. (the Tube).(analysis of Judge Judy television program)

Television ... that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night--Ray Bradbury

This is the tenth year on the air for a pillar of American jurisprudence: Judge Judy. Derided by some as the legal equivalent of a radio shock-jock, Judge Judy Sheindlin is something else entirely: America's designated dresser-down, the keenest parser of baloney on television, the secular moralist whose belief in the law is matched only by her desire to let the callow cow-eyed products of the Grievance-American community know where they stand on the intellectual food chain. (Hint: plankton.)

Sure, she shouts. Yes, she hectors. If her tongue drew blood they'd have to install gutters and drains on the set. But watch her disassemble some aimless moron nine years behind in child support who's suing the mother of his kids for custody of the remote control, and tell yourself that's not Justice. It comes in no purer form.

The syndicated legal show on TV began with "People's Court," presided over by Judge Wapner. It was the antithesis to courtroom dramas--no background stories, no charismatic attorneys who could perrymason a confession out of someone in the third row. The stars were the humble, everyday litigants and their slice-of-life lawsuits. In retrospect, Wapner's tenure was mild. He threw spitballs. Judge Judy fires armor-piercing missiles.

Her show often depends on the very people she holds in contempt: citizens so comfortably corrupted by narcissism and entitlement that they believe the legal system exists to reimburse them for a meal shared in 2003 with a short-term boyfriend. You meet people who have watched the show without absorbing a jot of her moral construct, who actually believe Judge Judy will smile on their case. Halfway through the interrogation you see the horror dawn in their eyes: St. Peter might have sent them to hell, but at least that wouldn't be shown for years in reruns.

So why do they come before her? Well, the fine print in the credits says that "Monetary awards are paid from a fund maintained by the producer." Just because the participants don't have to cough up their fines, that doesn't stop them from slamming down papers and ...