In an attempt to break free from the journalistic pack, I am providing an assessment of President Barack Obama on his 107th day in office.

Like almost every other reporter and pundit in Washington, I’ve been thinking—probably too much—about last week’s contrived milestone.

My initial encounter with the president occurred just days into his tenure. I went to the White House to cover the ceremony for the first piece of legislation that Obama signed into law—the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Luckily, the White House press office hadn’t processed my day pass when I showed up at the Northwest Gate. That delayed my entry and made me one of the last two reporters to be escorted to the East Room.

Along the way, we were held up. Soon, the reason was apparent. Obama was walking toward us from the Rose Garden, where he had just welcomed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Obama poked his head in the door near where I was standing. He bantered amiably with one of his aides, teasing him about the long work hours the staffer already was keeping.

The president acted as if he had just met a neighbor at Saturday brunch in his Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago. He was breezily self-possessed and relaxed.

He started the bill-signing ceremony with a folksy “How’s it goin’?” to the assembled Capitol Hill and advocacy leaders.

I experienced firsthand the reassuring vibe that Obama radiates. His body language says that he’s got everything under control, even in the middle of a brutal recession and in the midst of two wars.

His manner contrasted sharply with Clinton’s. She was a bundle of edgy energy as she made her way to the East Room. Her style is much more like Sen. John McCain’s. I’ve encountered McCain in the halls of the Senate. He comes across as intense, even fierce.

But Clinton and McCain may have done something in their first 100 days in the Oval Office that Obama has not. They would have said no to significant supporters about a big policy matter.

Clinton and McCain probably would have rubbed some people the wrong way and had swaths of the country upset with them already. Obama, on the other hand, is riding high with popularity ratings hovering near 65 percent.

But it’s easy to be popular when you never say no. True, Obama has pretty much ignored policies pushed by organized labor, such as a bill that would make it easier to form unions and rewriting trade agreements.

But that’s not the same as taking clear policy positions. Obama temporizes, like a professor exploring all sides of an issue with a class.

He eloquently analyzes problems and proposes sweeping solutions, as if he’s sketching them out on a huge blackboard. He gives captivating lectures. But so far, he hasn’t taken tough stances.

For the most part, Obama has presided over spending trillions of dollars. When you put $787 billion in the stimulus package and Congress passes your $3.5 trillion budget, not too many people have been rejected in their funding requests.

Obama says that the spending is necessary to revive the economy and restructure it for future prosperity. That may be true. He deserves credit for setting a bold path—health care, energy and education reform all at once—and putting an enormous amount of money where his mouth is.

But he’s not getting into the details of policy. That would mean sketching out a position that others can attack.

For instance, Obama is letting Congress take the lead on health care and immigration reform. He’s staying out of the firing line.

It makes his Capitol Hill allies a little nervous. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters a couple weeks ago that the White House should participate in shaping the reform plan.

“We don’t want to get blindsided,” Baucus said.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut and a leader of the Senate Health, Education, Pensions and Labor Committee, made a similar point at a meeting with reporters.

“I want the White House involved,” Dodd said. “They need to be at the table.”

Obama favors a table in immigration reform—a round one filled with members of Congress.

“So what I hope to happen is that we’re able to convene a working group … to start looking at a framework of how this legislation might be shaped,” Obama said at an April 29 press conference.

But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, expressed frustration at what he thought was the president’s tiptoeing around a subject that already has been thoroughly parsed.

“It’s essential that the president demonstrate the leadership that can only come from the president in telling us what his plan is,” Cornyn said at an April 30 hearing.

In his caution, Obama is no different from most other politicians. That’s OK. Most politicians are good people trying to do what they think is best for the country while preserving their own viability.

One thing’s for certain: Professor Obama’s class is likely to be the most stimulating one on the Washington campus.