After the State of the Union address, much about the annual speech is dissected. What were the highs? What were the lows? What were the priorities set or the challenges made?

What gets less attention is what wasn’t said.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden hit a lot of the expected bullet points: economy, immigration, Ukraine, Gaza.

There was one sentence about two names that have come up often: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-Marine Paul Whelan. Gershkovich was arrested in Russia last year on charges of espionage. Whelan was arrested in 2018 on the same charges and convicted in 2020, receiving a 16-year sentence.

Both have been mentioned as the subject of potential prisoner swaps. Whelan has been through this before, rumored as a second bargaining chip in the deal that exchanged WNBA star Brittney Griner, charged with possession of marijuana, for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. That deal happened in December 2022, but only for Griner.

“We’ll also work around the clock to bring home Evan and Paul, Americans being unjustly detained by the Russians and others around the world,” the president said, bringing the gravitas of the State of the Union to their cases.

He did not mention Marc Fogel.

Fogel is the 62-year-old Oakmont teacher and Butler County native who was arrested in Moscow in August 2021, long before Gershkovich and for the same medical marijuana as Griner. While there are concerns rightly voiced and efforts made for Gershkovich and Whelan, Fogel has not been designated wrongfully detained and is seldom mentioned by the State Department.

Biden had a chance to say his name Thursday. It would have taken less than a breath to add him to that single sentence. He did not.

Why? Why does the Biden administration not bring the same weight of authority to bear in Fogel’s case that it has and continues to wield in others’? Why does the president not do a teacher — a profession he lauded in his speech — the same honor he has a journalist, a Marine and a basketball player?

This might seem unimportant to some. Do the crime, do the time — although 14 years in a Russian penal colony seems excessive. But more Americans are being arrested and not being mentioned either.

Ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a Los Angeles resident, has dual American-Russian citizenship. She was charged with treason while visiting her grandmother. Robert Romanov Woodland, 32, is a teacher like Fogel. He is a native Russian adopted by an American family as a child. Also like Fogel, he was arrested on drug charges in Moscow.

The State Department is warning Americans against traveling to Russia. The reasons stated are not only the war in Ukraine but also “the potential for harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law” and a limited ability to help.

Perhaps that’s what needs to be said more than “Marc Fogel.” Biden could have stood in the House of Representatives on Thursday and spoken the simple reality: If you go to Russia, you could be targeted, arbitrarily arrested, and unless you are famous or valuable, no one in power will utter your name.

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