NYT dismissive of liberals on healthcare?

[thesquanderer]

In the article "For Obama, a Signature Issue That the Public Never Embraced Looms Large," the writer Peter Baker says,

just 32 percent supported the Affordable Care Act when it was approved in March 2010, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. As of a month ago, 34 percent supported it, virtually unchanged. To be sure, about a fifth of those who oppose it say it did not go far enough, essentially frustrated liberals.

Is it just me, or does that three-word tag at the end sound awfully dismissive?

Another bothersome quote:

One adviser said if the White House had realized the economic troubles would be as sustained as they have been, health care might never have been on the table. Others disagree, arguing that health care did not detract from efforts to promote recovery.

The second sentence is presented as a rebuttal to the first one, but it really isn't, as the two statements are not inherently at odds. That second sentence assumes an unsubstantiated premise in the first... that the adviser in question was suggesting that going for ACA may have been an unfortunate distraction from attempts to fix the economy, which is not actually implicit in his statement. The suggestion of misplaced priorities seems to be one of the author's invention. Perhaps the adviser was saying that ACA would not have been on the table, not because it detracted from economic efforts, but rather for political reasons.

Here's one more that bothered me: There is a quote from a representative of American Crossroads. Who are they? They are identified simply as "a group that supports Mitt Romney for president." Does that really tell you who they are? In fact, it easily reads as if American Crossroads is some kind of independent, normally unaffiliated group, who has decided to endorse Romney. I don't think that really captures the source of their perspective!

This "liberal" and "lamestream" media sounds more like a Murdoch outlet.

[link:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/us/politics/health-care-overhaul-is-still-no-hit-with-public.html|