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FindLaw's Julie Hilden, the same columnist who once eloquently argued that Tom Cruise suing South Park for insinuating that he's gay would be as nonsensical as Michael Jackson suing Rolling Stone for claiming that he's black (or something to that effect), now takes a look at the recent matter of Britney Spears vs. Us Weekly. As you may recall, the newly unencumbered pop star had sued the glossy weekly for reporting that she and former joint-bank-account-depletionist Kevin Federline had made a sex tape and "acted goofy" when the subject of its leak came up in her lawyers' presence. An L.A. judge then dismissed the case, writing in her decision that "the plaintiff has publicly portrayed herself in a sexual way in her performances." But as Hilden explains, that ruling virtually ignores the stronger half of the defamation suit—the "goofy" half:

While Judge [Lisa Hart] Cole carefully analyzed Spears's other claim, she shunted this one to the side - writing dismissively, "It is clear that [Spears] did not bring this lawsuit because she was falsely accused of acting goofy." [...]

Why Spears brought the suit is, frankly, none of the judge's concern; the judge's only concern ought to be its legal validity.

Moreover, Spears's "acting goofy" claim was far from legally baseless. Indeed, it was the better of her two claims.

The court wrongly slighted Spears' claim by simply referring to it as a claim that she "acted goofy" - without providing any context. A claim that Spears acted goofy at an amusement park would obviously not be defamatory. But US Weekly claimed that she acted goofy when she learned that her private sex video was going to be sold by a stranger as porn for public consumption. In other words, it suggested that she thought being transformed from pop star to porn star was no big deal.

To illustrate her point, Hilden then contrasts this to the leaking of the Paris Hilton sex tape, an event which sees the party heiress to this day still mining deep stores of fake shame. If even a world class skanklet like Hilton, Hilden argues, could drop the goofy act long enough to appear visibly upset by the thought of the whole world watching her bellyflopped exploits in glorious, green night vision, then shouldn't America's Tarty Sweetheart be held to the same standard? Still, a decision in Spears' favor in this instance might have very well marked an ugly blow to freedom of the tabloid press, creating a culture of fear in which editors thought twice before describing Spears' future baby-fumbling exploits as the "goofy" actions of an inept mother, and instead went with far weightier characterizations such as "sober," "premeditated," and "severe."