Do you ever notice that when someone of Jewish heritage posts a column all of the Jewish/Israeli haters feel entitled to spew venom en masse? Raise one question about bi-racial President Obama however and you are a racist. What ever happened to this country and the freedoms of tasteful discourse?

The difference being that those columnists are hired to do precisely what they excel at, whether or not you or I like what it is. I’m certainly not happy about the NYT employing MoDo, but they’re gettting exactly what they want from her. Stein has no expertise whatsoever in finance, or apparently in writing about it.

“I don’t think any of them had a regular opinion column spiked. That’s a truly extreme measure and very rarely done.”

Well, that’s a counterfactual, so unless we hear from them we can’t know, but it’s not particularly rare in my personal experience. I’m a financial journalist, writing news and opinion pieces, and I’ve had several spiked, as have my colleagues.

“Paul Krugman was essentially a PR tool for Enron, which was especially troubling in his case because he did no real work for them IIRC.”

Again, the stated reason for terminating Stein’s column was paid PR in violation of policy. If Krugman didn’t do that, then he wasn’t violating the policy, whether or not he was systematically biased in favour of Enron. Personally, I don’t see that bias in the columns he wrote about them, though clearly he didn’t see through them at all.

I have some sympathy for this. Otoh they already have Bob Herbert and Mo Dowd, so it’s not like the standards are that high.

“No I don’t think it’s possible, except in so far as such opposition may have made it more likely for NYT readers to kick up a fuss. The NYT recently hired Ross Douthat, a vocal conservative critic of Obama, as a columnist. He replaced Bill Kristol, one of the most hardline conservatives in public life.”

I don’t think any of them had a regular opinion column spiked. That’s a truly extreme measure and very rarely done. If Stein’s story on that checks out I for one think that speaks very poorly of the Times.

“Though I suspect you’re right that not every columnist has been entirely clean in this regard. That said, once it was brought to the NYT’s attention in a fairly high profile manner, I doubt they felt they had much choice in the matter.”

Paul Krugman was essentially a PR tool for Enron, which was especially troubling in his case because he did no real work for them IIRC.

“1. Do you think one column every two weeks or four weeks is enough to bind Stein to the Times’ “journalist ethics” policy. Do you suppose that policy has been applied in an evenhanded way?”

I do think it is enough, personally. The policy itself states: “Thus as far as possible, freelance contributors to the Times Company’s journalism, while not its employees, should accept the same ethical standards as staff members as a condition of their assignments for us. If they violate these standards, they should be denied further assignments.”

Though I suspect you’re right that not every columnist has been entirely clean in this regard. That said, once it was brought to the NYT’s attention in a fairly high profile manner, I doubt they felt they had much choice in the matter.

“2. Do you think it’s possible that Stein has been scapegoated for his opposition to Pres. Obama, and furthermore that his column criticizing Obama for exceeding his authority wrt the auto industry was a completely legitimate argument for a person in his position to make?”

No I don’t think it’s possible, except in so far as such opposition may have made it more likely for NYT readers to kick up a fuss. The NYT recently hired Ross Douthat, a vocal conservative critic of Obama, as a columnist. He replaced Bill Kristol, one of the most hardline conservatives in public life.

“3. Do you think it’s possible that Stein has been scapegoated for his opinions on other political-cultural issues unrelated to his financial column at the Times?”

See above. Also, the real question is what on earth the NYT was doing hiring Stein to write about finance in the first place.

“4. Do you think the Times’ has treated Stein fairly wrt the logistics of him being fired?”

Depends what you mean by fairly. It wasn’t very gracious, but then firing never is. He’s not a staff member, so I’m not sure what other “fairness” he could expect.

See
http://mandatemedia.typepad.com/photos/u ncategorized/2007/07/16/blogattack.jpg

If it froths like a rabid dog, it’s probably bought and paid for by the RNC.

The sad thing is, no they didn’t. People are simply too bored with him now. (His being so wrong on the economy didn’t help.)

Ben Stein is a factoid in search of a trivia question.

That said, I agree with Felix who has lamented the dearth of strong financial reporting in major media. Indeed, there is a gigantic, gaping hole in the area of hard-nosed, muckraking financial and business reporting at the New York Times and elsewhere. A whole generation of Americans has failed in aggregate to earn any positive return at all in the markets. While this happened in the past, this time it has occurred while the many in the financial sector reap rewards fit for pharoahs. From fund fees that eat a high percentage of all returns to unfair trading programs that front-run everybody to bonus schemes that dwarf reported profits to taxpayer-funded bailouts that enable the breathtaking compensation to continue to financial products which prey on the financially uneducated, to exporting of garbage assets abroad and destroying of trust in America, our financial sector has done a great deal of harm.

Here’s hoping Ben Stein gets replaced with a hard-working financial muckraker or two. Because as limited as he was, he was worth something as a columnist, expressing frustration at unfairness in the economy that we have all felt. His confusion and fearfulness at the how things were playing out week by week expressed nicely the feelings of hundreds of millions worldwide.

Bush’s $800B bailout got your tongue, Brad? $1.2 trillion of the current calendar year’s deficit was already approved by Bush before Obama got elected. Oops! Nice try, though.

As much as I wish the Times could pull a Marty McFly and undo Stein’s parents first encounter, I don’t think they are working on anything of the sort.

For example, the idiot that prefers to call the President “obama” as a show of his comtempt for the person fails to understand the respect is shown for the position of President of the U.S. It makes no difference who is currently in office, I will always respect the office. Instead, we have some redneck who probably doesn’t even have a high-school education calling those who disagree with him “dumb ass Americans” and pretending to have a kid he sends to school out of the country. What a joke! If your kid isn’t attending Oxford, he or she is getting a poor education. If you wanted your kid to be as narrow-minded as you, you should have sent him/her to one of the Bible colleges available. On the other hand, for those of us who are educated (holding a doctorate from a top 10 rated US school), we prefer to send our young adults to schools that will challenge them to think about all sides to any issue and to develop their own ideas and positions – to always seek to learn more and hopefully to never become a follower.

What is a follower? One who blindly votes their religious and/or ‘conservative’ agenda thinking it is in their best interest. For idiot (I prefer to call him idiot because he has not “earned” my respect.) he does it and doesn’t even realize how the GOP has its hand in his pocket – i.e. to pay billions each month for a war that was completely unnecessary or to do away with the inheritance tax (aka the GOP death tax) that allows billionaires to pass their wealth on to their progeny without paying a very small amount in taxes that will benefit this country as a whole. Paying $50,000 in “death taxes” would be painful, if not impossible, for 97% of the people. For the other 3%, it is a drop in the bucket.

So the Democrats are trying to obtain health-care for all Americans – a laudable goal – and the idiots scream we can’t pay for it. We always seemed to find enough money to borrow to pay for our unnecessary war, but now, when its something that will actually benefit the people of the country, its too expensive.

I say BS. Its about time that this government started to take care of the people – the living breathing beings who are trying to make ends meet every day of their lives. Not the mega-corporations, lobbyists, wall street fat cats or the multi-millionaires and billionaires. For idiot, I hope that he never one day develops diabetes or cancer or some other malady that gets him dropped from his insurance. With medical expenses ranging from $5-8,000 per month, I doubt you will be able to send your kids to dog-catcher school.

My advice (take what you need and leave the rest): stop shooting your bigoted, biased mouth off, start listening more – a lot more, develop critical thinking, start trying to find solutions, make suggestions, and remember your fellow man. We all have a moral obligation to help one another. Anyone who believes differently is pure scum. Selfish scum. A fake – certainly not a community leader or someone to look up to. On health care reform – we should tell the insurance companies to take their billion dollar profits and find another way to screw people out of their money.

Here’s a suggestion: Pass a federal law that allows people to say no to ‘required’ insurance policies such as auto and home. Allow them to self insure. Anyone care to guess how quickly the prices will come down? That is exactly why the insurance companies do not want a single-payor option by the government. People will be able to say “no” to their high prices and get basic coverage through the government. Their prices will fall so fast, it might become a low-profit product. And it should be a low or no profit product. No company should be able to exploit the suffering and illness of humankind.

My label? Idealist. We should care about one another. Even redneck.

Having written that, there are a few things to say in his defense.

1. Do you think one column every two weeks or four weeks is enough to bind Stein to the Times’ “journalist ethics” policy. Do you suppose that policy has been applied in an evenhanded way?

2. Do you think it’s possible that Stein has been scapegoated for his opposition to Pres. Obama, and furthermore that his column criticizing Obama for exceeding his authority wrt the auto industry was a completely legitimate argument for a person in his position to make?

3. Do you think it’s possible that Stein has been scapegoated for his opinions on other political-cultural issues unrelated to his financial column at the Times?

4. Do you think the Times’ has treated Stein fairly wrt the logistics of him being fired?