CQ Politics makes the argument:

Melody C. Barnes, who was among the economic team members that Obama introduced on Monday, is a former chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., on the Senate Judiciary Committee who served as executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress - the lefty Washington think tank founded by John D. Podesta, who heads Obama's transition effort - before joining Obama's campaign as a senior adviser...

A C-Span clip making the rounds on YouTube reveals Barnes to be something of an idealist. Much of her political thinking was shaped by dinner table conversations about Vietnam and President Nixon during her childhood in Richmond, Va. Her parents' political leanings led to a grassroots effort to support McGovern - and to Barnes' very early stint as a culinary fundraiser.

Describing her job at the Center for American Progress, Barnes said, “Quite frankly it's all about changing the world, changing the country, helping the American public realize what it means to have a progressive America, to hear the other side of the debate that we think that they've been missing for a long time.”

If one is keeping a tally, then Barnes might certainly bring Obama's administration back to the left. Still, much of his foreign-policy appointments have been, if not right, at least center-left. It's hard to ascertain what an Obama administration is going to do of course, but a centrist foreign-policy combined with a leftward domestic policy could be the right call, were a Democratic president wanting to maintain balance.