rsync 2.6.7 not excluding whole directories

[Karl Berry]

I'm not sure if I was relying on unspecified behavior, but I was in the
habit of putting entries like this:
/home/tug/public_html
into an exclude file.  This would omit everything under that directory.
(I'm not sure if it omitted the directory itself, but I didn't care.)

In rsync 2.6.7, this had no effect, and everything under
/home/tug/public_html was copied.  I notice that a new /*** feature was
added, so perhaps that is related somehow.  When I add /** or /***, the
directory is excluded fine.

Here's the invocation with all the options (I left out the dozens of
other directories, but can send them if need be):

rsync --archive --compress --partial --relative
--rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync --sparse -v -e ssh
--exclude-from=/l/etc/backup.exclude 'tug:\
...
              /home/tug \
...
	     ' /backup/u/tug

A few of the (many) files that were copied:
home/tug/public_html/rutgers05/vga/UnivRest256.jpg
home/tug/public_html/rutgers05/vga/UniversityInn230.exif
home/tug/public_html/rutgers05/vga/UniversityInn230.html
home/tug/public_html/rutgers05/vga/UniversityInn230.jpg

Thanks,
Karl