nntplib and ssl

[Andrew]

I'm working on a personal project that, among other things, needs to talk
to a news server. 

Python's nntplib seems ideal for my purposes, but as far as I can see it
doesn't support nntps connections. If I understand nntp correctly (I may
not) that means, among other things, it sends passwords in cleartext. 

That won't do. I note that python has a separate ssl module but I must
admit I'm at a loss as to how to fit the two together. I'm working from the
Python 3.1.2 documentation, page noted here:
http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/nntplib.html

Anyone have suggestions? 

--

Andrew