The flame came fluttering out of the darkness, into an early morning light. Americans in bathrobes would sometimes stand by the sides of the two-lane roads, and as a runner carried the Olympic torch toward them, they would signal thumbs up and break the country silence with a soft, startling cheer. Their faces would glow with a complex light--a patriotism both palpable and chastened, a kind of reawakened warmth, something fetched from a long way back.
For Americans, the moment was powerfully emblematic. Why were they cheering? What were they cheering? When television news played scenes of the torch's progress across...
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