McCain's hour finally comes

On Capitol Hill, Tom Daschle, the Democrats' leader in the Senate, once again hugged a Republican who had fought hard for the presidency. In September, after the attacks, he famously hugged President Bush. This hug was for the man of this particular moment: the president's former rival John McCain.

Senator McCain waged a much-admired though ultimately doomed campaign in 2000, when he rode across the states holding presidential primaries on a bus called the Straight Talk Express - and sounded more like a man on a white horse.

He inveighed against the way in which US politics was tainted by money. Mr Bush, meanwhile, quietly worked the system to his advantage and - after a rocky start - raised enough to see his opponent off.

By comparison this is a modest victory, but for Mr McCain it is a very sweet one. He and Mr Bush are still more inclined to throttle each other than do any hugging.

"I am somewhat speechless," he said at a celebration after the Senate vote, "although I am certain that affliction will not last long."

The act is likely to stand as his political monument, but Mr McCain says it is not the end.

He wants to overhaul the federal election commission, the body that has to enforce the new law. And he is talking of a was on "pork-barrel spending", by which politicians collect federal money for projects in their states in return for political favours.