Many were touched when they heard the group President Obama planned on sending to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games as the U.S. representatives during the opening and closing ceremonies. More specifically, what they felt may have been pride by the selection of tennis legend Billie Jean King. King, who is openly gay, will be entering a country with laws not always protective -- some of them discriminatory -- of LGBT individuals.

Yet, longtime Olympic journalist and member of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) press commission, Alan Abrahamson, saw only disrespect in Obama's decision -- not necessarily because of King, but mostly because for the first time since the 2000 Sydney Games, neither the president, vice president, nor a former president will be attending as members of the presidential delegation, letsrun.com reported.

For an event that's nearly 118 years old, however, 14 years since the last time the executive trio "stood up" the games doesn't seem that long. (And what was the reason in 2000?). In his open letter to the president (posted on his website, 3wiresports.com), Abrahamson makes some strong points against Obama's decision -- a decision he believes also insulted the IOC and could potentially cost the U.S. a bid for future games. (Obviously, we'll offer a city for the 2024 summer games after Tokyo won for 2020).

Abrahamson provided some interesting facts, most notably how Russia spent $51 billion in preparation for next year's games, or $10 billion more than China spent in 2008 for the Summer Games (typically a much more expensive undertaking). "To be obvious: Sochi matters, a lot, to Mr. Putin," he wrote.

Eventually, the sports journalist would question King's selection, for he believed it was a political decision in an event created to overcome such tactics, not broadcast them.

"Who are we Americans to be using the Olympics to lecture the Russians about how to run their country?" Abrahamson asks. "To be sending Billie Jean King over as a symbol of - what? The purported progressiveness of our society or our moral superiority? Isn't that presumptuous or, worse, arrogant?"

In essence, the exercise of Abrahamson's letter was to point out, as many have done, the U.S.'s tendency to export its culture on others. Fair enough, though he may have gone too far when he questioned whether Obama's decision would influence judges' scores for U.S. athletes (on which much of the Winter Games are based). Even if that's true, for someone as close to the Olympic games as Abrahamson and as (at least) a mild defender of Russia to open up the possibility of cheating degrades only the games and the host country, not the United States or Obama's decision.