Sochi. I won't be able to attend your wedding because that's when my book club is meeting.

This last week the Whitehouse announced that President Obama and Vice President Biden will not be attending the Olympics in Russia next year because apparently they are to busy.

I don't think this is the real reason.

1. I'm pretty sure he attended the Vancouver Olympics. When the Economy was more rough than it is now.
2. It's not like he forgot that the Olympics were coming up or that he didn't know.
3. The President has a lot of control over his schedule. The whitehouse website has a page that shows the President's schedule. http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/ If you were to track it during the Sochi games and compare his schedule with the time of the Vancouver games (I don't know if the website goes that far back) I would be surprised if there was much of a difference.
4. He especially has that much control for accommodating something that has been scheduled for about 7 years.
5. I've never seen an episode of The West Wing where President Bartlett was on Air Force 1 and not discussing policy.

Not to long ago Russia passed a law preventing the adoption of their children by families from the United States. That itself might not be a crisis, but I think it highlights the fact that our relations with Russia are a little bit rough. Not as bad as they were a few decades ago, but to good either. This is very frightening to me. 

Attending the games certainly isn't a magic wand that would cure our relations, but I think it would be a good gesture.

I don't think boycotting the Olympics is inherently bad but I'm not sure that Russia has hit the ceiling of what can be tolerated. One of the cliches I've heard of the Olympics is that we are supposed to look past certain things. From what I've heard I think boycott efforts for Sochi's Olympics seem to be gaining more traction than the boycotts for Beijing's. The logic doesn't add up in my mind.