Ben Stein loses N.Y. Times column over endorsement

NEW YORK -- Monotone TV personality Ben Stein has been stripped of his Sunday New York Times business column because of his work as a pitchman for a credit monitoring company.

New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis released a statement Friday that said the newspaper decided it would not be appropriate for Stein to pitch for FreeScore.com while writing his column.

An e-mail requesting comment from the former host of Comedy Central's Win Ben Stein's Money quiz show was not immediately returned.

Earlier this year, Stein withdrew as the University of Vermont's commencement speaker over complaints about his critical views of evolution in favor of intelligent design.

Stein famously played the part of a monotone economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.