Web.py does something like that. Not raw SQL but almost:
result = db.select('table', what='id, name',
where='id>3', order='id', limit=5)
Is better than cursors, but for medium to large web applications is too much work.
I used to be against ORMs ("Another layer? How inefficient"), but now I see them like compilers: They're easier to work with and, most of the time, SQLAlchemy does the job better than me (lazy-loading, etc.).
I used to be against ORMs ("Another layer? How inefficient"), but now I see them like compilers: They're easier to work with and, most of the time, SQLAlchemy does the job better than me (lazy-loading, etc.).