corrente

Miss Manners, er we mean Miller, does not seem to carry any particular clout with Judge Hogan. We award him one more character point--but this story has a twist I have never heard before in privilege cases:

(via WaPo)

A federal judge, in an order released yesterday, ruled that New York Times reporter Judith Miller cannot avoid a subpoena to testify about her private conversations with news sources before a grand jury investigating whether senior administration officials leaked the identity of a covert CIA officer to the media.

In his Sept. 9 order denying Miller's request to quash the subpoena, U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan said that the reporter's discussions with anonymous sources are not protected, either by the First Amendment or by common- law privilege. Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, said the Times would appeal the decision.

Senior White House officials have acknowledged they were trying to raise concerns with reporters at that time about Wilson.

Miller contemplated writing an article about Wilson and Plame and "spoke with one or more confidential sources" about a July 6, 2003, article that Wilson wrote for the Times titled 'What I Didn't Find in Africa," according to Hogan's order.

Why the distinction about "anonymous sources"? Hell, is there any other kind in Washington? Anyone with expertise in First Amendment law is invited to clarify this point in Comments.