Of the 117 posts I've written before this one, the most comments have come on those having to do with the Maria Cantwell/Mark Wilson story. I think it is a fascinating story. And apparently you do, too.

In one meeting with campaign aides, Wilson goes from Cantwell's No. 1 anti-war opponent to a well-paid outreach director for her campaign. I've been focused on why Wilson made the move, and, frankly, his explanation that he has seen an evolution in Cantwell's war position doesn't ring true for me. I think he was convinced by Dal LaMagna — who I bet can be a pretty good evangelist — that coming into the campaign would do more good than a run on his own that everyone knew would be a loser.

In hindsight, no one should be surprised by this outbreak of pragmatism by Wilson. He has run before as a Green and a Libertarian. And in his role as Libertarian he gladly adopted the party's platform, including this statement, which doesn't sound like part of Cantwell's program: "If the government took less of our hard earned money, and spent what they do take wisely, the seniors would be so wealthy they would ask the government for nothing."

That was in 2002 when he ran against Rep. Jay Inslee. In defending Wilson in a 36th District Democrats list-serve debate, Chad Lupkes wrote last month, "Yes, four years ago Mark Wilson ran as a Libertarian. The Libertarians knew his views and positions, but told him what he needed to say to get the Libertarian vote." As Wilson told me in May, "Using those talking points was the cost of having help in ballot access."

I think Cantwell made a smart move bringing Wilson and LaMagna in. Don't believe it? Look at the comment threads here and you see people who a week ago were bashing Cantwell now telling us all there's no story here; nothing to see, move along.

To suggest that reporting Wilson's salary is a non-story is absurd. The story is about a guy who got a job. It is natural to ask how much he's getting paid and I'm willing to bet that if this were a Republican campaign story, the left would be demanding to know how much money was involved — and whether the money could be traced to Halliburton.

A recent comment on this blog included this: "Mr. Postman did state that Mr. Wilson's pay for joining Cantwell's campaign surprised him (with the suggestion that there is something nefarious or sinister) about this in his original post." This is making me nuts. There was no suggestion of anything. Maybe I just don't know the inside workings of campaigns as well as others, but when I thought about how much Wilson would be paid, I thought it would be less than $8,000 a month. What I meant by saying I was surprised was that I was surprised.

No, it is not the most important story in the world, or even in Washington state. And if Wilson or Cantwell staffers had answered questions about how much Wilson was getting paid, this part of the story would be in the past by now. It is an unusual move to make a primary opponent a highly-paid campaign staffer. If anyone has any other examples please let me know. But if not, don't tell me this isn't a story.

But here's the bottom line: There is no scandal here. There is no stink. Other than waiting too long to tell us how much Wilson is making, the Cantwell campaign has talked openly about bringing him in from the cold. They talked on the record about approaching LaMagna, giving him a face-to-face meeting with Cantwell and having senior staff meet with Wilson.

You know what would have been a scandal? Wilson dropping out of the race for "personal reasons" or to "focus on his business" and having the Cantwell campaign buy $8,000 a month of electrical supplies from Wilson's business. That would have stunk.

The Sound Politics argument that it may not be a bribe in the legal sense is of course a suggestion that it is a bribe. It is the perfect no-win syllogism when the other possibility offered is that Cantwell told Wilson "that she would change her position on the war, making American defeat her goal, thus joining many on the left."

Given the depths of political scandals in the country, how can it be said that this "smells of everything most people don't like about politics."

Partisans on both sides of this issue are letting their agendas cloud their thinking. And it's only July.