Hearst "Yellow Journalist" Dan Freedman once again shaking his tin cup for more ATF power and money but in the process makes an interesting revelation about the NRA.

I have previously excoriated Dan Freedman as "The Cowardly Liar," and "ATF's favorite press flack." Now comes Freedman shaking the tin cup for more ATF power and money: "ATF poorly armed with funding as duties grow."

It has the usual tripe about Fast and Furious, including this gem:

The misguided Operation Fast and Furious, in which agents in Phoenix were told to stand by while Mexican drug cartel intermediaries bought weapons in local gun stores and smuggled them across the border, largely resulted from management errors within the bureau and the local U.S. attorney's office.

Ah, yes, the "botched operation." You know, the one that Freedman at first studiously ignored and then, when it became embarrassing, minimized. But there is also this interesting factoid:

There are many forces behind the agency's second-class status. One is federal law enforcement competition, where the agency has long struggled with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and others for dollars.

But a major factor is the political animosity generated by enforcing gun laws. The NRA stands out as the single organization in or out of government most intimately involved in shaping the bureau's mission.

Jim Pasco, an ATF lobbyist on Capitol Hill in the 1980s and '90s, recalls negotiating the agency's budget with his NRA counterpart, Jim Baker.

"I'd say, 'I need 200 more agents, 100 more inspectors,' " said Pasco, who added that he promised the new hires would stick to chasing criminals with guns, not the gun owners and collectors who are the bulwark of the NRA.

After that, he said, Baker "would sign off."

Baker, now the gun group's senior lobbyist, insists that the NRA never had veto power over agency's budgets. "The contention that somehow the NRA is responsible for the amount of money appropriated or not appropriated for ATF is erroneous," he said.

Which is no denial of Pasco's contention. "Give us more power and money and we promise we won't target law-abiding firearm owners." Yeah, that's worked out real well over the past couple of decades.

I read this promise that "the new hires would stick to chasing criminals with guns" and immediately had this image form in my head: "Little Jimmy" Vann and the anti-firearm zealots in the Chief Counsel's Office are sitting in a meeting being briefed on next year's budget by Pasco and laughing uproariously. "Little Jimmy" is saying incredulously, "And he BOUGHT that?!? What an idiot!"

More evidence of symbiosis, if any were needed, between the gun cops and the Lairds of Fairfax.

LATER: Freedman also filed this subtle rewriting of history: "How the NRA became ATF's biggest enemy."

There is mention of the anger at the early ATF outrages, but no mention of the "go along get along" NRA leadership that gave the ATF a pass until the movement led by Neal Knox swept them away. No mention of the revanchist coup of the old guard that toppled Knox and led to the regime of Wayne LaPierre and the Lairds of Fairfax. (See The Gun Rights War.) No mention that the struggle for the soul of the NRA continues to this day with a board badly split between principle and appeasement. But then that wouldn't fit Freedman's meme.