I have tried, earnestly, to write this column outside the political box as often as possible, but Barack Obama keeps making news. And, as I approach my 37th anniversary as a professional journalist, I am tempted to argue that there is no need for apologies. This is, after all, a brand new story, and I am a political reporter. Moreover, this is a tale I have always dreamed of chronicling -- that of a black American who might really become president of the United States.

Of course, Obama’s putative opponent, John McCain, was obliged to carp about his fellow senator’s sojourn to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England. “New” politics aside, no one at this stage of the game can afford to compliment his or her opponent or to leave an achievement unpunished.

Still, he was out of line by implying that Obama is more committed to becoming president than he is to the country’s welfare. It made McCain seem both mean-spirited and desperate. I’m sure he had to have been miffed that the Democrat took what was intended as a dare -- to go to Iraq -- and, as the saying goes, made lemonade out of it.

So stunning and redoubtable was Obama’s success that even Ben Stein, the jack-of-all-trades conservative who specializes in sourness, had to bow to Obama’s majesty on the world stage.

“I think he did unbelievably, fantastically well, just mind-bogglingly well,” Stein said on “Larry King Live,” adding that Obama seemed more up on Iraq than McCain, who has claimed it as his area of utmost expertise.

“I was absolutely floored at what a good job he did, and my head is spinning at what a good job he did,” Stein effused. “He is the master -- most masterful campaigner, I think, of my lifetime.”

Even those who think Stein overstated the case would have to acknowledge that Obama at least accomplished this much: He established himself as a man the world respects and from whom they expect great things. Those 200,000 people who turned out in Berlin betrayed a hunger for something good from America, whose condition can help determine the well-being of the whole, wide world.

And, to be sure, some of those smiles and hugs and warm welcomes from world leaders were intended as swipes at the current occupant of the Oval Office, however subtle.

French President Sarkozy had to have known that participating in a joint news conference with Obama in Paris would rankle not only McCain but George W. Bush as well. But that’s what the excitement of working, at last, with a reasonable man can do.

From time to time between now and next January, I will find a way to write about something other than the Obama phenomenon. But, for now, give an aging newswoman a pass, will you?

She’s waited a long time for this.