The business section in this morning's New York Times leads with a story that runs under the headline "Inquiries Find Little Abuse by Tax Agents." The inside headline says, "Data Shows Few Instances of Harassment by I.R.S.," and that is the gist of the story. As the article quotes one Democratic congressman as saying, reports of overzealous Internal Revenue Service auditors and laws trying to stop the abuse are just "another example of the Republican priority of demonizing the I.R.S. and limiting its resources to fulfill its responsibilities."
You have to read pretty deep into the Times article to find some astonishing facts. In one case, an auditor who was arrested for drunken driving told a police officer that he would "find out" about him and have "a good time" with him. The article also reports that one in 33 I.R.S. workers either did not file tax returns or owed back taxes.
The article reports excuses for both the drunken auditor and the non-compliant I.R.S. workers. But it would seem to Smartertimes.com that the headline and story should emphasize that the tax collectors aren't paying taxes and that they are getting drunk and threatening to audit police officers, not that there is "little abuse." When the New York Police Department accidentally shoots an innocent person, the Times doesn't write a story under the headline, "little abuse," even though the statistics may bear that out. It writes about the abuse and headlines it, giving the statistical context lower down in the story. It's enough to give a reader the impression that, somehow, the Times likes tax collectors better than it likes police officers. The article quotes representatives from the I.R.S. and from its employees union, but there is not a single quote from a conservative anti-tax group. Can you imagine the Times running a story on police abuse without the obligatory quotes from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rev. Al Sharpton? Of course not. But try to find Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform quoted in today's story. Not there.
News Blackout: No mention in either yesterday's Times or today's of Senator Lieberman's announced willingness to meet with the Rev. Louis Farrakhan or of Mr. Lieberman's announcement that Pat Buchanan has been misunderstood and is not an anti-Semite. The Times was all over George W. Bush for not adequately distancing himself from Rev. Farrakhan and Mr. Buchanan, but if you want to find out where Mr. Lieberman is on this stuff, you've got to read Sidney Zion's column in today's New York Post.
More Name Trouble: The Times today runs a correction rectifying its misspelling of the name of Walter Olson, the editor of overlawyered.com. The misspelling was pointed out in yesterday's Smartertimes.com item on John Stossel, which also pointed out that the Times had made the same spelling error, and corrected it, in June. But the Times today also manages to get the spelling wrong on another well-known name, that of the singer Sheryl Crow. A report from the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles reports that "BellSouth, US West, Echo-Star Communications and United Parcel Service are paying for a concert by Cheryl Crow on behalf of Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont."