An earlier version of this piece was published on February 5, 2007. The correct version follows.

As events of recent weeks have only reiterated, Barak Obama is the early superstar of the 2008 presidential race. The charismatic Illinois senator draws massive and enthusiastic crowds wherever he speaks, and the media seems to hang on his every public utterance. The greatest validation of his superstar status, however, are the increasing attempts to puncture his aura of invincibility. Liberal Democrats claim that Obama has betrayed his potential to become their ideological standard-bearer in Congress. Moderate Democrats claim he’s too liberal. And so far, Republicans only seem able to attack Barack Hussein Obama for his middle name.

The most persistent of these emerging critiques—and the one favored by the politicians, consultants, and pundits that act as guardians of the reigning political establishment—is that Obama is inexperienced and, by extension, lacks policy substance. To be sure, the length of Obama’s tenure in office (four years in the U.S. Senate, by 2008) is comparatively brief; no amount of vitriol by either his supporters or detractors will change that. But the suggestion that Obama is in any way “unsubstantial” lacks any basis in reality. Instead of disparaging the senator, this particular line of criticism reflects the fundamentally stale nature of the reigning political establishment in this country and the challenge that Obama poses to it.

Consider the realm of foreign policy, where much of the criticism about Obama purported lack of substance falls. For one thing, Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which means that he has about as much exposure to the intricacies of international relations than any politician outside of the federal executive branch can reasonably expect to have. No senator, representative, or governor can claim an appreciably greater degree of professional familiarity in matters of foreign policy than Obama.

In a more specific sense, Obama has produced a legislative record that clearly reflects his own foreign policy instincts. In the last session of Congress, he teamed with Republican Richard Lugar—long a paragon of sensible, non-ideological thinking in terms of foreign policy—to sponsor legislation to help secure loose stockpiles of conventional weapons around the world. Their bill would build upon the very successful Nunn-Lugar program, which provides funding and expertise to help states of the former Soviet Union secure loose nuclear weapons and material.

Obama has also sponsored a variety of bills relating to energy security. One such proposal would mandate automatic, annual increases in fuel economy standards, while another would encourage domestic automakers to produce more hybrid cars by offering federal assistance to defray the costs of employee health care. These bills, like many others sponsored by Obama, share a few common traits. Each one is eminently sensible, easily capable of passage in a closely split Congress, and largely devoid of aspirations for widespread attention or popular celebrity.

Obama’s detractors may overlook his legislative record out of negligence or ignorance. But the fact that his record is not widely known or acknowledged speaks volumes. Obama had become something of a political superstar even before he entered the Senate. He arrived in Washington with very high expectations, and it would have been relatively easy for him capitalize on such initial popularity by championing a single, prominent issue as his own. But as a member of the minority party in the Senate—and the lowest-ranking member, at that—such outspoken behavior likely would have been futile and certainly would have been interpreted as self-serving. In other words, it would have been precisely the kind of behavior expected of a typical, ladder-climbing politician who comes to Washington carrying lofty expectations and even loftier ambitions.

Obama’s patient, quiet legislative record in the realm of foreign policy, then, suggests a greater taste for sensible pragmatism than for rote partisanship. In Washington, this is a peculiar trait, and it is certainly not one expected of a politician favored for higher office. For those that make their livelihoods perpetuating the reigning political establishment—by fighting the same fights, along the same partisan lines, with the same cast of characters, over and over again—Obama represents something of a paradox, and a challenge. The paradox is that he is a politician of tremendous natural talent, with a large and growing base of support, yet he refuses to fight the partisan battles in the manner that has been expected of him. The challenge is that Obama’s way of doing things may work better.

The critique about Obama’s lack of experience is certainly valid, and now that he is a member of the majority party in the Senate—and an increasingly prominent one, at that—the expectations for him to produce legislation that is both sensible and successful will be greater than ever. But the claim that Obama lacks policy substance is a criticism of the weakest standard. Instead of tarnishing the senator, this line of criticism only reflects Obama’s ability to confound the reigning political establishment. In the process, Obama is challenging the pre-conceived notions about how a successful politician is supposed to behave.

Daniel Widome is a San Francisco-based writer and foreign policy analyst.