Attention to the problems with China will become apparent to everyone whether or not we decide to boycott the olympics.
In any case, the US would never do that because we have entirely too many companies in our country using the low cost of living in China and the dollar against the RMB to house their production facilities. In a nutshell, we have lots and lots of money invested in the country and much of our economy is dependent upon cheap labor. Companies control the governement, so therefore, the government would never ever formally boycott them.
Addtionally, you should realize that China is not so much of a Communist nation in the respect that the USSR was or in the manner North Vietnam was. I worked as a teacher in China for quite some time, and by no means do you get the impression it is a "prison state." Any sort of corruption to the people, or repressive goverment regulations imposed are done so in the same manner in which they are done in the USA: behind closed doors. If you are envisioning a society where you constantly see people being arrested, searched, killed by the overpowering politcal communist regime, think again. It's nothing like that at all. The CCP is a dinosaur of an organization. They still exist, but are mostly just in the background and are losing much of their stranglehold on the country since business is now taking over. China is a massive culture with a much longer history than anyone else in the western world. To limit all the wonderful things that China has to offer and just focus on the Tibet situation and the fact they are Communist is just ignorant.
Anyone who thinks that a visit to China will be flooded with poverty, unrest and an overall unsettling situation is way off the mark. Hate to tell you but the people I met in China were happy and very pleasant to be around and the most welcoming people I have ever met. Much nicer than anyone in Europe or South America.
I am sure that many of them disagree with their goverment but the goverment was not running their lives. It was just something that existed in the background just in the same way ours exists in our background, flooded with the same corruption and lies, only we cannot brand our goverment as "Communist" so it makes for not so easy sensationlism as does with China.
All the press and the event itself is nothing more than an opportunity for the media, an opportunity for the anti-China political movement in Tibet, and an opportunity for anyone with beef against China to use the games as leverage to further whatever their cause may be. It will probably be effective too, but at the same time, you should not let things get blown out of proportion in your head by what the press tells you.
Best way to understand a country better is to actually go and visit it yourself. People who protest against China without ever having been there are idiots jumping on a bandwagon that cannot think for themselves.