NY Daily News Owner Says He Wrote One of Obama's Speeches

Oh, that state-run media! We’ve already mentioned CNN’s willingness to say anything — or not say anything, if need be — to advance Barack Obama’s presidential run. But Mort Zuckerman and the paper he owns, the New York Daily News, were really a full-service P.R. firm for Candidate Obama — Zuckerman tells Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he even wrote one of Obama’s speeches:

[youtube kP79FUZzgD0]

If true, isn’t that something Mort’s paper should have disclosed when it endorsed him?

The Obama administration and the leftwing media have had quite a cozy, revolving door relationship. As Brent Baker of the Media Research Center noted last month, 16 major media figures have joined the administration, or an aligned union or an aligned left-wing environmental group. But who knew that it started before he actually took office?

Update: The Rhetorican posits that we’ve already established what Zuckerman is; but perhaps the fee for services rendered could have been better negotiated.

Update: In the comments, David Thomson adds, “Marty Peretz of The New Republic could have discretely helped write a speech for Obama—and I would simply shrug my shoulders. An owner of an explicitly left-wing publication has already informed the subscribers about its political loyalties. Mort Zuckerman’s newspaper, on the other hand, claims to be objective, dispassionate, and above the fray.”

Update: At Big Journalism, Alexander Marlow adds:

Zuckerman owns and publishes the New York Daily News and owns U.S. News and World Report. Perhaps someone didn’t pass Zuckerman the memo that if you want to be a responsible publisher and give your readership the impression they are subscribing to publications that produce unbiased journalism, you don’t get to write speeches for the President.  And, if you are President of the United States and you want to assure your public that you aren’t using the media as a propaganda arm, you don’t deputize the mainstream press to write your speeches.

But, Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic reports “Obama’s aides don’t remember consulting with Zuckerman.”

Of course, if what Ambinder reports is true, Obama and team are off the hook (this time), but Zuckerman publicly ejaculating his I’m-an-Obama-speechwriter-too! fantasy on national television is nearly as disconcerting/creepy as hard evidence of media/Obama administration collusion would have been.

Exactly. More from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.