However, it is difficult to see how that interest is advanced by anonymous leaks from the independent counsel's office.

Maybe an anonymous leak to the papers.

Even the anonymous leaks have been few, far between and uncertain.

For months, some Israeli politicians have been making accusations against the nationalist, Faisal al-Husseini, both publicly and through anonymous leaks.

But anonymous leaks are next to impossible to trace.

Anyway, as Clinton's lawyer David Kendall pointed out at the hearing, this rule is about official statements, not anonymous leaks.

In fact, anonymous leaks in the Clinton campaign blamed Penn for losing Iowa, and this manic press conference had an air of desperation.

"That has been a consistent and unfortunate theme with this President, the use of anonymous leaks to damage, if not shatter, another person's personal reputation."

Perhaps the argument from the utilitarian perspective is sound, though I wonder about the effects of repeated anonymous leaks to the news media about wrongdoing.

But after-the-fact anonymous leaks are corrupting.