By Ankush
I had high hopes for Larissa MacFarquhar's profile of Barack Obama,but ultimately I don't think it breaks much, if any, ground: What youget is the requisite (if interesting) personal history, the commentaryon Obama'smostly reserved demeanor on the campaign trail, and -- the centerpieceof this profile -- much ado about his interest in consensus-building.
Butcan you really call someone a "conciliator" (as the title of theprofile does) if you pay so little attention to the man's actual policypositions? MacFarquhar mentions that Obama publicly advocated removing the troop withdrawal timetable from the Iraq supplemental in the event of a Bush veto, and that he has "one of the most liberal" voting records in the Senate, but that's basically it.
If your thesis, however, is that Obamapursues consensus as an end in itself, you really do need to identifyspecific issues on which he has compromised or demonstrated his willingness to compromise.You need to try to substantively answer the question of whether therhetoric is designed to draw people from both parties to some sort ofmiddle ground (which isn't the same thing as the true political"center") or whether it's designed to draw people to hispositions. If it's the latter, then a better word than "conciliation"is probably "persuasion." It will only seem like conciliation if youwish he were further to the left than he actually is.
