Reporter Miller goes to jail; judge mouths bad metaphor.

I respect civil disobedience, defying the law for a cause. Part of it is accepting the consequences, as Judith Miller is doing. It's a very powerful image, a person going willingly to jail for a principle deeply believed in. It can work to produce a change in the law.

"I have a person in front of me," Judge Hogan said, "who is defying the law."...

Ms. Miller, who conducted interviews but never wrote an article about the C.I.A. operative, joins a line of journalists who have accepted jail time rather than betray their sources' confidences. That tradition, according to Judge Hogan, does not deserve respect.

"That's the child saying: 'I'm still going to take that chocolate chip cookie and eat it. I don't care,'" the judge said.

There being no federal journalist's privilege, the judge had to punish Miller, but he didn't have to say that. His effort to strip all dignity from her as she made her grand gesture backfired and made him look small.