How to install an existing Drupal profile with drush?
To build on what Patrick said, if the profile is not already in your profile directory, you can download it with Drush dl:

drush dl drupal --drupal-project-rename=drupal
cd drupal
drush dl commons
drush site-install commons --db-url=mysql://user:pwd@localhost/db_name --site-name=Example --account-name=admin --account-pass=pwd

You do not need to run drush make, because drupal.org runs it prior to making the profile available for download.  Thus, when you run drush dl commons, you get all of the components that the Drupal Commons distribution needs to install.