Steve Jobs returned to Apple on February 7, 1997. Five weeks later, Apple announced that it was laying off almost a third of its workers — 4,100 jobs. Almost fifteen years later, Apple had 60,000 employees, and Steve Jobs died with $7 billion to his name.

Nobody resented his wealth.

Years after he returned, Jobs would say that Apple was ninety days away from bankruptcy in 1997. Fellow computer magnate Michael Dell infamously said that October that if he was in charge, “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Nobody resented Apple for killing jobs.

After all, that’s how capitalism works: Companies rise, companies fall. And some companies rise again from the ashes.

Contrast this with how vulture capitalism works:

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Our guest columnist is New York Times Public Editor Arthur S. Brisbane, who asks New York Times readers whether the New York Times should get into the journalism business.

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

One example mentioned recently by a reader: As cited in an Adam Liptak article on the Supreme Court, a court spokeswoman said Clarence Thomas had “misunderstood” a financial disclosure form when he failed to report his wife’s earnings from the Heritage Foundation. The reader thought it not likely that Mr. Thomas “misunderstood,” and instead that he simply chose not to report the information.

Another example: on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

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So we’re watching this Newt attack ad on Rachel last night, when suddenly we bark.

Understand, barking — HAH! — is something usually reserved for Jon & Stephen, not the evening news. We don’t just bark at anything. We have standards.

So, what let the dogs out? It wasn’t the highlight reel of Mitt’s Greatest Misses. That just elicited Mild Amusement, something akin to that smarmy smug grin Mitt adopts while he’s waiting for applause to fade. (Seriously, have you seen that look? Mitt is the Douchebag in Chief.)

No, it was right near the end, the title card that attempted to drive the point home:

Only Newt Gingrich can win the debates against Obama. Mitt Romney can’t.

HAH!

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Breaking voter-fraud news!

A mystery man trying to vote in the New Hampshire primary using a dead man’s name got caught by an eagle-eyed voting supervisor in Manchester, then disappeared before police could corral him.

“We take a lot of pride in this primary,” Gloria Pilotte, the Ward 9 supervisor who stopped the voter fraud, told the Herald.

“I’m very confident about the way we do this in New Hampshire.”

Whew. That was close. Who knows what wingnuts would have done with a certified case of voter fraud!

Unless it was wingnuts who did it:

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“Rains unprecedented in 117 years of record keeping set new yearly precipitation totals in seven states during 2011… Despite the remarkable number of new wettest year records set, precipitation averaged across the contiguous U.S. during 2011 was near-average… This occurred because of unprecedented dry conditions across much of the South, where Texas had its driest year on record.” [Weather Underground]

“Mitt Romney is depicted as a financier ‘more ruthless than Wall Street’ and a son of privilege responsible for firing thousands of workers in a film bankrolled by Newt Gingrich supporters set to be released today in South Carolina.” [Bloomberg]

Las Vegas political columnist Jon Ralston tweeted a nugget yesterday that we hadn’t noticed at WorldNetDaily:

Had no clue about Romney birthers! Woman calls to get me on Pulitzer-in-waiting story that George R. was Mexican citizen, Mitt ineligible.

As we know, the Romney Clan took a little detour south of the border a century ago to escape the tyranny of Singular Opposite Marriage, only to return when a pesky revolution interrupted their Big Love Bliss. Mitt’s dad — 1968 Preznidential candidate George Romney — happened to drop in Chihuahua in 1907, which might have raised qualification issues, had anybody cared.

But Anchor Baby Mitt? Detroit, 1947. Have we voted Michigan off the island because of all its Muslims?

Well, no. What the esteemed Mr. Ralston discovered was Advanced Birtherism.

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