Mr. Tomanelli, while your perspective in last week’s column may be shared, your claims are, frankly, not. In contrast to your assertion that “most serious economists recommended over $1 trillion in stimulus aid,” the Cato Institute accumulated more than 300 signatures of such “serious economists” (including Nobel laureates) directly opposing Obama’s plan. (http://bit.ly/8C75) I thus suggest that Obama’s plan was bold — who would propose legislature precedented by failure (or chokingly delayed success) in the Great Depression and 1990s Japan? Further, what economist not paid by the government (or the bill) would support it?

An example of an unprecedented move, however, was the stride toward government-organized health care. A brutally conservative me would deem it a stride towards socialism, but I do not grok the specifics, so I remain thankfully ignorant. His only prudent maneuver was in foreign policy. To the rest of the world, we are unfortunately the same snotty, fat, greedy pigs we have been, and considering the diplomatic manure pile Bush gifted us with, Obama cannot help but continue defacing our nation’s aura until our painstaking withdrawal concludes.

Disagreements aside, I feel your conclusion is justified. Obama is better than nothing, but barely. Nonetheless, if you honestly believed that politics would not “get the best of Mr. Hope,” I advise you to take the next candidates’ promises as literally as you would Stephen Colbert’s — for no matter the ideology, what a politician advertises is merely a popular satire of what he will deliver.

Andrew Horwitz ’13