Ben Stein is an actor who often appears at conservative conferences and events — often speaking against such things as global warming. Stein’s hard-right politics has made him a hero for conservatives and a villain for liberals. Now, however, he is suing after a company decided that his political advocacy undermined his value as a spokesman. While some conservatives might view such discrimination lawsuits and emotional distress claims as another sign of our litigious society, Stein is suing Japanese company Kyocera Corporation and the New York ad agency Seiter & Miller for the loss of a $300,000 gig. He says that Kyocera then tapped a University of Maryland economics professor whom his lawsuit portrays as a Stein lookalike or clone. Stein declares in his lawsuit that he is “the most famous economics teacher in the world.” Sure there were Adam Smith, John Kenneth Galbraith, and John Maynard Keynes. There were even people like Karl Marx who fashioned themselves as well known economists. But none of them appeared in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
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