OpinionColumn

Former host of Win Ben Stein's Money and Turn Ben Stein On (and also some less important jobs like scriptwriting for Richard Nixon) has been terminated from the New York Times. Specifically, he will no longer be writing his weekly business opinion column. The company took one look at his other job as a spokesperson for FreeScore.com and found it to be a conflict of interest.

There are a number of ways this could be spun. No doubt the conservative press will consider this a strike against their cause since they have always pegged the New York Times as a liberal newspaper. I do admit that I find the business practices of sites such as FreeScore.com to be suspect (they advertise as free, but further analysis reveals that one has to pay for their services). Perhaps he should have supported a less sleazy one like Cash4Gold.com.

The following is one of his commercials for FreeScore.com. Judge for yourself whether the Times was justified.