After 2 tough summits, Obama savors Ghana moment

CAPE COAST, Ghana — For a new president, there inevitably comes that moment: the first time he hears a foreign crowd hoarsely chanting his name, or sees thousands of well-wishers surging forward, or realizes youngsters are running pell-mell beside his motorcade, desperate for a glimpse of his face.

For Barack Obama, the moment came here — in the teeming streets near a West African castle where traders once shipped human chattel to a life of toil in the New World.

After a week of difficult summitry in Russia and Italy, trying to get balky allies to follow his lead, the outpouring Obama was treated to in Ghana can only be called rapturous — from Africans overjoyed at the visit of America's first black president to a country south of the Sahara.

And after feeling this kind of love, it must be cruelly hard to go home.

Awaiting Obama in Washington: an ever-more-painful recession and two of the biggest fights of his young presidency — over health care and energy.

As he toured Europe and Africa, conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats sought major changes to the health care overhaul House leaders are working on — and in so doing, forced a delay. At a news conference in Italy, Obama sought to downplay that, repeating his call for action by the August recess, but it was clear his top agenda item had hit a speed bump.

Meantime, though Obama bragged to the allies about House passage of a cap-and-trade bill, the coalition on global warming was fragile, and the measure's fate in the Senate remains uncertain.

But the start of Obama's latest foreign trip was a hard diplomatic slog, too.

In Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to negotiate a new nuclear arms accord to replace START I, which expires in December. However, he left Moscow with disputes over missile defense, Russia's neighbor Georgia and Moscow's treatment of dissidents unresolved.

In L'Aquila, Italy, the G-8 Summit ended on a similarly inconclusive note, as developing nations balked at G-8 calls to halve greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century.

Which must have made the Ghanaian effusion all the sweeter.