Department of “Huh!?!?”: Why We Root So Strongly for Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, and Company, Part CXXXIII

This morning’s example on why we root so strongly for Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, and company:

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal: Jack Nicas and Susan Carey: Southwest Airlines, Once a Brassy Upstart, Is Showing Its Age: “CHICAGO: At Midway Airport here on Jan. 2,

Southwest Airlines Co. LUV +1.88% canceled a third of its flights…. A severe snowstorm was the main culprit, but Southwest managers also blamed ramp workers, suggesting that nearly a third of them called in sick to protest slow contract talks. The spat boiled into a legal battle, with the workers suing Southwest for requiring they provide doctor’s notes…. Now Southwest is asking for some of the biggest contract changes ever from employees in a bid to contain costs—and some union leaders are furious…. The recent acrimony is one way that Southwest is showing its age. Once the industry’s brassy upstart, the airline, which took wing 43 years ago, has begun to resemble the mainstream rivals it rebelled against in its youth: carriers that were slow-growing, complex and costly to run…. For decades, it was the fastest-growing and lowest-cost airline in the U.S., undercutting competitors’ fares in new markets and sending traffic skyward….

And then, without any sign of irony:

Over the past year, Southwest’s stock has risen 77.6% to $23.94, and the carrier remains the only U.S. airline with an investment-grade credit rating. Still, the airline has failed to hit its long-standing goal of a 15% return on invested capital since 2000…

I believe that in the pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal somebody–Alan Murray, Marcus Brachli, or whoever–would have said: “Wait a minute. Air travel is a highly cyclical industry. We have had two recessions since 2000, one of them the biggest since the Great Depression. What airline could make 15%/year on invested capital in such an environment? The stock price is at record highs: why are writing a Southwest-shows-its-age rather than a Southwest-still-successfully-scrappy article?”

And Nicas and Cary would have been sent back to the drawing board…

But this kind of question is, apparently, no longer asked at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal.

But this kind of question is supposed to be the kind of question asked by Nate Silver and is the kind of question asked by Henry Blodget…