Making History with Silo Sam

Standing over my seat in the airplane, he shadowboxes with the empty aisle just darkened for takeoff: "It's like a fighter who's got his guard up high, looking over at 'the Bear' " -- his head periscopes over his hands -- "and you expose yourself to these terrible body blows. Drugs." His midsection abruptly gives under the imagined punch, but the hands stay up. "Debt." He buckles again. "The purchasing of America. Energy." It is Jesse Jackson's analysis of the gut dismay he finds in contemporary America. He is an ecumenical collector of dismays.

"I start my policy toward Russia from...