Pakistan, Nov. 11 -- Every World Cup produces its heroes: the striker with the golden boot, the goalkeeper who saves the penalty, the midfielder who runs for ninety minutes without complaint. Russia had all of these. Yet for many observers, one of the most memorable figures was not on the pitch at all. She was in the stands, then in the rain, then embracing defeated players on the podium. Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovi? offered, within a few weeks, a lesson most officeholders spend their careers avoiding: that power does not need to announce itself. VIP culture is, at bottom, a theology of distance. It insists that those who hold office are made of different material from those who elected them, and that this difference must b...