As a judge, everything I say in open court is recorded and subject to transcription, should the need arise. This is a dreaful thing. Because I say a great many things ("for the record") every day, not all of them are as perfectly phrased as a published opinion by Learned Hand or Oliver Wendell Holmes. It would horrify me if the local press spent time, every day, sifting through the record in my court to locate every verbal flub I make. And it would doubtless shame me, were all of these to be published in the local paper or on local television, for the amusement of readers and viewers. On the other hand, people in "public life" -- whatever that is -- are deemed "fair game" these days and I'd have to take my licks, just like the President of the United States.