The President is also on a rare collision course with Congress over a Bill which seeks to expand stem-cell research backed

The President is also on a rare collision course with Congress over a Bill which seeks to expand stem-cell research, backed by moderate Republicans, which he is vowing to veto.Another possible loser is Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader and prime architect of the “nuclear option”. For years liberal and conservative groups have been gearing up for battle over the future of the Supreme Court, lobbying furiously for and against possible candidates. But he acknowledged that there could be trouble from Christian conservatives in his home state. “People at home are going to be upset at me for a while,” he said Nor is there any certainty that the deal will hold. The exact definition of “extraordinary circumstances” is unclear, and the real battle, over likely vacancies on the Supreme Court itself, is yet to come.One or more members of the high court are expected to step down soon, starting with Chief Justice William Rehnquist – 80 years old and suffering from thyroid cancer – who may announce his retirement at the end of the current court term next month. In return President Bush is granted a straight vote – and guaranteed confirmation – for three of five contentious nominees, plus a promise that Democrats will only use the filibuster in “extraordinary circumstances”.Also lifted is the threat of a Democratic blockade of Senate business, imperilling Mr Bush’s entire legislative agenda. Instead, the first of the embattled candidates, Priscilla Owen, a Texas state judge and evangelical Christian, could be confirmed as early as today to a seat on the 5th Circuit federal appellate court, which is based in New Orleans.”The Senate is back in business,” said Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican and one of the 14, after the deal was struck.

The bargain offers something for everyone, but could yet have major implications for the 2006 mid-term elections, and for the 2008 presidential race.Under the deal, Democrats will be spared a filibuster showdown which they might well have lost. This would have allowed judicial nominations to be approved by a simple majority of 51 of the 100-seat Senate – where there are currently 55 Republicans – instead of the effective super-majority of 60 required to overturn a filibuster.This in turn would have cleared the way for new federal court and Supreme Court appointments to correct what conservatives claim is a liberal bias in the judiciary.They point to the Supreme Court’s refusal to outlaw abortion, and cases such as that of Terry Schiavo, the Florida woman who was taken off life-support in March.Instead, the filibuster survives, for now at least, thanks to a compromise worked out by 14 centrists, seven from each party. Republican moderates face a backlash from powerful social conservatives following a last-minute compromise in the Senate which averted a devastating showdown vote on filibusters for President George Bush’s judicial nominees. This is not to predict that he will necessarily stumble in Washington. But history argues that he may already have reached his political zenith. After all, since the early Sixties, roughly one black candidate either for state governorships or for the US Senate has actually won in every decade.The path to the White House for an African-American, whether it would be Obama or anyone else, for now, at least, remains dauntingly steep. Still, there are many Democrats who are daring to hope that he will make it and that the place that this man descended from Kansas and Kenya is dreaming of is a white building with imposing columns on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue..

Of how Barack, which means “blessed” in Swahili, excelled in school but stumbled into drinking and drug use as a teen before pulling himself back. And how he graduated with a political science degree at Columbia University before going later to Harvard Law School where he became the first black ever to be president of the Harvard Law Review. It is an American story of hardships overcome and racial barriers broken to make any campaign manager drool.When finally Obama tries to leave the hall, he finds himself ambushed by supporters asking for a photograph or his autograph on the book. The scrum lasts about 15 minutes – a smile always on his face – before aides finally steer him out a side door.But, in spite of all the political instincts that tell him otherwise, Obama might be advised to enjoy some of this attention while he has it. And he carefully rehearses his script about paying his dues to Illinois first. “After the people have seen my work, hopefully they will feel I can make a contribution to the party and to the country.”Even that hardly has the echo of a politician slamming the door, however. And it is tempting to imagine an Obama candidacy for Commander in Chief, if not next time then in the years beyond.