■ The Irish government has reworded its forms to “request” payment of taxes instead of “demanding” payment. Very civilized. Persons refusing the request will be asked politely to go to jail.
■ The New York Times, badly beaten by the Washington Post on Watergate, is out with an expose of the CIA. The Times’ headline is revealing: “Huge CIA Operation Reported in U.S. . . .” Reported? Where? In the New York Times! (“Extra, Extra. New York Times reports that New York Times reports that New York Times reports . . .”) And in the following days it became a sort of bootstrap operation, subsequent Times articles reporting the disclosure of previous reports: “In today’s issue, the Times also quoted . . .” The effort smells of an anti-CIA operation motivated by a routine disparagement of America’s imperial postwar responsibilities, by the Times’ anti-U.S. Seymour Hersh. The gravamen of the complaint is that the CIA had no business watching people within the U.S. In fact the language of the statute creating the Agency does limit it to foreign operations and, of course, we’re all strict constructionists now. Domestic spying, to be legal, must be done by the FBI. The point is not that what was done was wrong, but that it was wrong on account of who did it. If the Food and Drug Administration overstepped its boundaries and excluded a dangerous consumer product from the market—would Ralph Nader have apoplexy? Who would cry foul if the federal tea tasters were caught, in flagrante delicto, tasting coffee?
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