I've been looking at the whole controversy surrounding Sen. John McCain and the New York Times, which reported Thursday that way back in 2000 some of the senator's campaign aides tried to keep a female lobbyist away from him because of an appearance of impropriety, and I'm left with just one question:

So what?

Even if the allegations against McCain were shown to be true, so what? Even if the implications of those allegations -- the implications being that McCain might have been romantically involved with the lobbyist and might have done favors for her clients -- were shown to be true, so what?

McCain and the lobbyist deny the stories altogether and neither politicians nor lobbyists have ever been known to be saints. But, so far, I haven 't seen anything in the charges which -- even if true -- would have anything to do with McCain 's qualifications to be president.

But, that story has been big news this week, as has the bizarre story about Michelle Obama's pride in America.

Obama made a speech in Madison Monday and, during that speech, she said "hope is making a comeback" in American politics, adding that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country and it's not just because Barack does well but because I think the people are hoping for change."

You would have to be a complete idiot to read those words as meaning Michelle Obama is not a patriot and is not proud of her country. What she said was there is a climate of hope and enthusiasm about the political system this year that we haven't seen in a long, long time. You don't have to accept my assessment. Her entire speech is on the C-Span Web site. Call it up and see for yourself.

Or, if you don't want to go to all that trouble, just ask yourself one question: Is it really likely that the wife of a man running for president would go into a public forum the day before the Wisconsin primary and trash her own country?

Michelle Obama is right. There is a new enthusiasm for politics this year and it isn 't just limited to Democrats. My grandson, Peter, is a senior at the UW-Milwaukee and is an enthusiastic Mike Huckabee supporter. I think Peter's politics are a little odd -- but I love the fact that he cares.

And there's a reason he cares. Most of the major candidates for president this year have run positive, issue-oriented campaigns. Barack Obama has. Hillary Clinton has, for the most part. McCain has and Huckabee has. Most of those who washed out early also ran decent campaigns.

You can question Obama's experience, or McCain's Iraq enthusiasm, or Huckabee's religious fundamentalism or, even, Hillary's husband and still advance the political debate. What you can't do -- not if you want to keep young people involved -- is to mire campaigns in silly arguments about an eight-year-old controversy or about an innocent comment by a candidate's wife.