Bueller???? Bueller????*

Yes, as Felix Salmon notes, with no small amount of exhultation, the New York Times has fired Ben Stein as a columnist.

Of course, it was not his deliberate lies, nor his stupidity that got him, but rather the fact that he was cashing in on his Times gig in a way that did not generate them money:

NYT spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed this, telling Gawker that “Ben Stein’s fine work for us as a columnist for Sunday Business had to end, we told him, after we learned that he had become a commercial spokesman for FreeScore, a financial services company.”

More's the pity that he got the gig in the 1^st place.

^*A reference to what was John Hughs' best movie. The director and writer of teen angst flicks died yesterday.