I'm still a little blurry on exactly how I feel about the Valerie Plame, Judith Miller and maybe Karl Rove matter. I believe legitimate leakers — folks who disclose wrongdoing in powerful places — should be protected, but that protection should not extend to some of the excesses that are, alas, becoming the norm.

After I wrote my earlier post, I read a column by Michael Kinsley who, though a Liberal and a newspaperman, has come to some of the same conclusions. I also read a piece by Frank Rich, who makes some good points for the opposite view.

Also this weekend, I read The Secret Man, the new book by Bob Woodward on his relationship with Mark "Deep Throat" Felt. It's a quick read, more like a long article, and it leaves me (no surprise) with a generally favorable view of Felt. A lot of this is because Woodward reminds us of some of the slimy things the Nixon Administration was trying to do, making it quite credible that Felt believed they were trying to manipulate the FBI for political purposes, much as they were doing with the Internal Revenue Service. I can easily accept that Felt believed something had to be done to stop them, and that it's wrong to dismiss him, as some have attempted to do, as a guy who just ratted on his associates because he was mad he didn't get a promotion. There are plenty of moments in the book when I don't like Felt for things he says and does as Mark Felt, but I think what he did as Deep Throat was important and vital and heroic.

One of the more intriguing but sad parts of the book is how Woodward details his conversations with Felt after dementia had robbed the latter of most of his memory. Woodward is almost desperate, grasping at anything, to get Felt to recall his role as informant and to say something positive about their relationship. Eventually, the memories never resurface but the old man is friendly enough to give Woodward some satisfaction. It was also interesting to read about Woodward's struggle to keep the secret for so many years, including deciding to lie in a few instances.

Turning back to the Plame/Miller/Rove matter: Though the lack of leaks from the prosecutor's office is a good thing, and a welcome change from the way Judge Starr slimed those he could not indict, there's one downside. It's too much speculation by people who really don't know the details. At the moment, folks seem to be arguing that Rove might not be guilty of naming Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. agent because he didn't know her name and could only say, "Joseph Wilson's wife." I can't believe the actual case, if there is one, will turn on that distinction.

And for those of you who were at the Sondheim gala last Friday night, or just want to see what some of it looked like, here's a photo gallery of the event.

A brief interview with birthday boy Stephen Sondheim.

The last few days, I've made a couple of false starts at a post about the jailing of reporter Judith Miller in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. It's been tough to write since I'm moving away from my previous, long-held belief that the right of the Free Press should trump just about everything, and that reporters should never be forced to reveal their sources. I no longer believe that as strongly as I once did.

What's changed? Well, first of all, the definition of a journalist has become much more ethereal. Obviously, a lady who writes for The New York Times is a journalist. Is someone who writes for Salon? Newsmax? How about Matt Drudge? If he is, then why isn't Jeff Gannon? At some point in the world of weblogs, does the standard get so fuzzy that I qualify? I'm not sure how you can have a special privilege for journalists unless you can clearly define who is one. I would be curious as to whether the various state "shield laws" have some sort of airtight delineation or if it's possible that you could be entitled to the privilege in one state or not in another…or if one judge could say you are while another says you aren't.

Secondly, the Plame case provides a nice template for how the asserted privilege can be used not to reveal but to protect wrongdoing. It's possible that owing to the technicalities, no law was broken in this matter. But if not, someone sure came close, so we have a "real world" example, not one of those science-fiction hypotheticals: "Well, what if revealing a reporter's source would stop a nuclear bomb from going off?" If there's a law against outing Valerie Plame's C.I.A. status and if that law was broken, what steps can be taken if a reporter can insist the privilege applies? Obviously, a law that can be broken without a real fear of prosecution isn't much of a law. Is it even remotely possible that someone could be convicted of leaking to a reporter if that reporter can refuse to testify? If not, why have the law? And is there any other place in our society where a person can assert they have some legal privilege and no one can rule that they're wrong?

Lastly, the whole notion of Anonymous Sources seems to not mean what it once meant. Once upon a time, they were officials, mostly lower-ranked, risking their careers to make sure the public learned what was really going on in their government. These days, it's more often a matter of higher-ups being able to plant news stories of questionable accuracy without attribution. So much of this went on in The New York Times for a while that the paper felt it necessary to apologize for it and to promise that there would be less reliance on unnamed sources. If they've cut back, I sure haven't noticed…and by the way, though they didn't apologize specifically for her, the Times reporter who was most guilty of this — of serving as a blind conduit for government smears and fibs — was Judy Miller.

The legitimate whistleblowers need protection. But if Karl Rove (or anyone in the Bush administration) really did leak something about Valerie Plame for political damage, that's not worthy of the privilege. Neither are some of the bogus stories that were leaked out of Ken Starr's office, leaked out of Senatorial committees to damage the White House, leaked out of the White House to damage everyone else and/or shore up the case for invading Iraq, etc. Exposing corruption is one thing but being an Anonymous Source is becoming a great way to be able to spread negative, possibly phony, stories about your enemies without ever having to accept responsibility for them. Somehow, the part of me that believes fiercely in Freedom of the Press is having a hard time marching for this cause.

It's being reported that comic book publisher and entrepreneur Byron Preiss was killed yesterday in a traffic accident. He was 52 years of age. Jim Steranko has written a much better, more personal obituary than I could possibly assemble.

There have been reports that Stan Lee has received a huge, seven-figure monetary settlement from Marvel Comics…this, on top of the hefty annual salary he receives. I was therefore shocked, and did not believe until I saw the photo, that he has been working recently as a mail carrier. This is a sad comedown for the man who was once the most important figure in the comic book industry.

I didn't mention all the performers in last night's Sondheim Gala at the Bowl but I should have mentioned the opener: A film of Krusty the Clown (from The Simpsons) performing "Send in the Clowns" — a song that was otherwise unsung during the event. No one sang "I'm Still Here" or "Comedy Tonight" or "Everything's Coming Up Roses" or a number of other Sondheim ditties that you might have expected. I think the audience liked the fact that the producers mixed the less-familiar with the familiar, instead of loading the program with songs we already all knew by heart.

I could also have mentioned that one of the best things about the evening was the audience, which was friendly and enthusiastic and I can't remember running into so many people I knew at a concert. Sondheim fans are some of the best people in the world.

The new Fantastic Four movie has brought a few articles about Marvel's treatment of Jack Kirby. Here, in the Orange County Register, is an interview with Jack's son, Neal.

Guess where I was last evening. BZZZ. Okay, time's up. Carolyn and I went to the Hollywood Bowl for their big 75th birthday celebration shebang in honor of Stephen Sondheim. What a wonderful show. What a wonderful cast.

The wonderful cast included Angela Lansbury, Jason Alexander, Bernadette Peters, Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Len Cariou, Josh Groban, Marin Mazzie, Eric McCormack, Elaine Stritch, Audra McDonald, Carol Burnett and I'm forgetting a whole lot of people. Warren Beatty and Barbra Streisand also turned up on stage but they didn't sing, unless you count leading the audience in a chorus of "Happy Birthday." There were many special moments — Stritch singing "Broadway Baby," Cook performing "Losing My Mind," Peters singing "Children Will Listen" and "Being Alive," Alexander doing "Free" from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (with Adam Wylie in the Hero role). Every number was a highlight but I'm guessing that if you'd polled the sold-out throng on its way out, the favorite moment would have been when Cariou and Lansbury — the original Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett — performed "A Little Priest."

(The worst moment in the show also involved Ms. Lansbury. Coming out for the final bow, she tripped over a wire and fell. There were just under 18,000 gasps — that's how many people the bowl holds — and then, just under 18,000 cheers when she got up and waved to indicate she was fine.)

The evening was, in part, a benefit for a new Sondheim-connected program called Children Will Listen, which is designed to get kids all over the country involved in musical theater. To show how it's working so far, Mr. Sondheim closed his gracious acceptance remarks by introducing a local kids' choir performing one of his numbers as the grand finale. I think everyone present would have liked the proceedings to go on…oh, maybe about five hours would have sufficed. On the way out, you could hear people mentioning the names of their favorite Sondheim tunes that had gone unsung.

No, I do not know if the concert is coming out as a DVD or even just a CD. But it should. If they'd had them ready to buy on the way out, they could have sold just under 18,000 of them.

Just added a couple more panelists to events I'm moderating at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. The Emmy-winning actor, Rob Paulsen, who spoke for Pinky on Pinky and the Brain (among zillions of other credits) will be joining us on the Cartoon Voice Actors Panel at 11:30 on Saturday morning. And Jim Warren, publisher of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and The Spirit will be a part of the Will Eisner Tribute on Saturday afternoon at 3:00. Here's the full list of the panels I'm moderating. Do not bother going to anything that isn't on this list.

I'm up late working but here are three things I found on the web today that weren't about tragic events in London…

• Two weeks ago, I posted an obit of Paul Cassidy, who was a ghost artist/assistant for Joe Shuster on the early days of Superman. There seems to be some dispute as to whether he was the first, but he was there for a time and quite an asset. Anyway, the Los Angeles Times has an obit [registration required] which may interest some of you because it contains a photo of the late Mr. Cassidy.
• My long-time chum Scott Shaw! was involved in the founding of what has evolved into the Comic-Con International in San Diego. He's now writing a column for Jim Hill Media and in his first installment, he writes about how that whole convention thing got started down there.
• I think Robert Klein is one of the most brilliant performers I've ever seen in my life, and I wish he'd stop working the eastern half of the country and come out here for some shows. In the meantime, you can enjoy this conversation he had with radio whiz Paul Harris. You can also be gladdened by the news that Mr. Klein has a new book out, that he has another HBO Special in the works, and that all his past specials will soon be available in a DVD set.

Good night, all!

It's governor GEORGE Pataki and mayor MICHAEL Bloomberg. Michael Pataki is an actor. Come to think of it, so are the governor and the mayor.

I was switching back and forth between CNN, MSNBC and Fox News as I watched the early reports on the London bombing. For a long time on (I think) CNN, what was on my screen was news coverage by Britishers, originating in England. It was restrained, informative and focused on what had actually happened.

At some point, the broadcast switched over to American control and, boy, was there a difference. First of all, we suddenly got an avalanche of speculation: Were these suicide bombers? What else might happen? What message were they sending? And most importantly, what does it mean to US? The topic was not that London had been attacked but that America was scurrying to prepare, just in case we are. New York governor Michael Pataki was suddenly on all channels to assure people that although there was no reason to suspect Manhattan was about to be attacked, everything was being done to be ready. (Uh, there was no reason yesterday to suspect Manhattan was about to be attacked. If all this stuff has to be done today, why didn't it have to be done then?)

I switched over to BBC America to watch their reporting. Much better in every way. For one thing, it was actually about what had happened to the people who were attacked.

It's not enough to say that this morning's bombings are horrible, tragic, sad, fill in the description of your choice. They're talking about 33 dead and more than 45 injured…but obviously, the damage goes far beyond that.

On my TV, news folks and government officials, both here and in Great Britain, seem to be asking people to juggle a number of different thoughts…

• There is no hard evidence as to who did this and it would be irresponsible to speculate and assume it was Al Qeada.
• Nevertheless, it was Al Qeada.
• London authorities had no advance word of these bombings.
• It was inevitable that something like this would happen there, sooner or later.
• There is no cause of panic here in the United States since we have no indications of any such plotting here.
• Nevertheless, be especially vigilant, though we can't say about what.
• And by the way, we're raising the Terror Alert to orange in some areas.
• You know, it's almost impossible to prevent this kind of thing.

For some reason, CNN keeps running a crawl that says, "Police Chief: Concerned this was a co-ordinated attack." Like it would be a relief to know that all these bombs exploding at roughly the same time and in the same place was a coincidence.

Just how much is the Iraq war costing us? (And this is just in terms of money.)