Signs of Hope, Part 2

American elections are always hotly contested, and 2012 already conforms to type. Yet Mitt Romney at least is opening the contest by acknowledging the realities faced by President Obama in 2009:

{Y]ou were dealt a hard hand. You came into office in the midst of an economic crisis that was not of your making. You were asked to face great challenges and to solve difficult problems. The tasks before you would have taxed the abilities of any new president.

Romney pulls no punches in then proceeding to state his case against Obama.

Your policies have failed. It is bad enough that they have fallen short even by the standards your own administration set for itself. But things are much worse than that. Far from bringing the crisis to an end, your policies have actively hindered economic recovery. In some cases, they were the exact opposite of what our government should have been doing.

Romney shows: it's possible to offer an alternative policy response - without first creating an alternative factual universe.