Western critics of Russia’s Sochi Winter Olympics have picked up too much speed and risk skidding off piste. A justifiable attempt to scrutinise the government of President Vladimir Putin has degenerated into an exercise in schadenfreude and ill will. Politicians who have decided to attend the games (including China’s Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan) have been level-headed. Those who have ostentatiously stayed away – the UK’s David Cameron, Barack Obama of the US and France’s François Hollande – are following what the critic Harold Rosenberg once called “the herd of independent minds”.
俄罗斯索契冬奥会的西方批评者有点过火，有超出合理程度的危险。审视弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)政府行为的正当努力，已沦为幸灾乐祸和不怀好意的举动。决定出席开幕式的政治人物（包括manbetx3.0 的习近平、日本的安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)，以及土耳其的雷杰普•塔伊普•埃尔多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)）是头脑冷静的人，而那些故意缺席的领导人——英国的戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)、美国的巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)和法国的弗朗索瓦•奥朗德(François Hollande)——则是在追随评论家哈罗德•罗森堡(Harold Rosenberg)所说的“独立思想的羊群”。