Obama's passivity | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

With apologies to William Shakespeare: Now is the summer of our discontent.

It now feels like the president who many of us voted for in 2008 on wings of progressive hope has faded from the limelight and is wallowing in unfortunate events and policies that are hard to understand:

• The governmental intrusion into our lives. Access to Verizon phone calls and Internet surveillance by the National Security Agency are attempts to deal with the threat of terror that pervades all of our current thinking.

• Our inexorable involvement in the seemingly unending political conflicts in the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Libya and Egypt). This military legacy is a vestige of the war on terror, and it feels like President Barack Obama is either unwilling or unable to disengage.

Obama inherited the above attitudes and policies from his predecessor, President George W. Bush. His passivity concerning them is disturbing, and it has left his supporters disconsolate and discontented.

Louis Borgenicht

Salt Lake City