Ben Stein Fired From New York Times Over Obama

At roughly the same time, I made a new set of antagonists by repeatedly and in detail criticizing the real power in this country, the "investment bank" Goldman Sachs, for what seemed to me questionable behavior. This elicited a mountain of favorable mail but also some complaints by well-placed persons.

Still, my editor at the Times stood by me loyally and was steadfast, even inspiring.

Now, in the time I had been doing my column, roughly five or six years, I had done many commercials for goods and services. No one at the Times ever said a word negatively about these. In fact, when I did a series of commercials with Shaquille O’Neal, the legendary basketball star, one of my superiors at the Times asked me for souvenirs. No one ever told me in any way, by word, look, or gesture, not to do commercials.

New York Times won’t allow criticism of Obama

Meanwhile, the haters connected with atheism and neo-Darwinism continued to attack me.

Then, two things happened to change and end my career at the Times. Well, maybe three. The Times told me they were forced by budgetary pressures to only run me every four weeks. This was a blow and I started to think about where else I might write. (I had been solicited by many major publications while at the Times but my editors had asked me not to write for them and I did as asked.)

But the two main things, as I see them, were that I started criticizing Mr. Obama quite sharply over his policies and practices. I had tried to do this before over the firing of Rick Wagoner from the Chairmanship of GM. My column had questioned whether there was a legal basis for the firing by the government, what law allowed or authorized the federal government to fire the head of what was then a private company, and just where the Obama administration thought their limits were, if anywhere. This column was flat out nixed by my editors at the Times because in their opinion Mr. Obama inherently had such powers.

Read More: By Ben Stein, American Spectator