OK you Montgomery County folks out there -- what are you hearing???

Sounds like our excellent Congressman, Chris Van Hollen, is all but certain to jump into the Senate race to succeed Paul Sarbanes.  So . . . who's gonna be our new representative in Congress???

It looks like the Repubs won't be able to persuade popular Republican Connie Morella to run again.  So, for all intents and purposes, the Democratic primary is it (unless y'all think Howard Denis would run as a Morella-repub).  

Who's running, and who's gonna win?  I've either heard or read that:

1. Mark Shriver -- "interested" but undecided.

2. Terry Lierman, very interested in trying again (almost beat Morella in '00), but was a big Shriver booster last time.

3. State Senator Brian Frosh --seems to be picking up his level of activity lately, both here and in Annapolis.  Interest is very high but name recognition is quite low.

4.  Ira Shapiro wants to try again, even though he was a distant third in the primary in '02.

What do you all think?  What have you heard?  Do share!

This morning I heard Bob Schiefer on the radio give an impassioned plea for not sending the Time and NY Times reporters to jail for refusing to disclose the source of the Valerie Plame leak.  It was the same pitch we've heard time and again: that the reporters' interest in protecting confidentiality is paramount to any other interest at stake here.  

I feel like I'm missing something.  These reporters (as well as Novak and the others), were witnesses to a federal crime, one that implicates issues of national security.  Thus, they have direct evidence of the crime, not just hearsay evidence.  Further, the wrongdoers they seem to be protecting were using the press in furtherance of their illegal activity.  It seems to me that requiring the disclosure of the Plame leaker is a reasonable exception to the general rule that the press must be allowed to protect the confidentiality of their sources.  I just don't see how this exception somehow threatens the ordinary confidentiality that attaches when people speak to reporters off the record.

Am I way off base here?