Comments made over the weekend by members of Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation that argue President Barack Obama is a leftist who needs to get to the center are simply untrue.

As I written before, Obama is a “centrist” by any rational definition of the word. He supports big businesses while continuing many right-wing policies created during a Republican-dominated government. He has escalated the military occupation in Afghanistan. He has bailed out Wall Street banks and huge automobile manufacturers, earning him the ire of his progressive supporters. His push for health care reform has been effectively stripped of any public option that might hold insurers accountable, and this, too, has disappointed progressive voters.

Let’s be clear. The president supports the corporate/military /industrial complex and will not try to change the power structure embedded in it. He has not proposed one program that can be construed as radical in the leftist sense. He inherited a huge deficit from a Republican president and extended it only to help revive the economy, which has actually improved in a technical sense.

But, according to a NewsOK story, Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, a fellow Democrat, see Obama as a lefty who needs to "get to where the American people are, which is somewhere in the center” (Boren’s words), claiming the president “is well to the left of the American people “ (U.S. Rep. Tom Cole’s words.)

The comments, which were made during an Oklahoma Press Association convention, reek of political pandering and calculation. Oklahoma is a conservative bastion, for sure, and Obama is unpopular here for debatable reasons, but that still doesn’t make him a lefty. The story, of course, is short on specific information and long on political rhetoric. The rhetoric makes it difficult to even have a discussion about what constitutes left, right and center.

The real reason the federal legislative process can be construed as ineffective and partisan right now is because of obstructionist Republican senators, who offer no realistic plans or programs and simply oppose Obama no matter what he does. The arcane rules of the U.S. Senate give a lot of power to the minority political party and individual senators through the filibuster and holds.

Here’s what Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, says about the state of the current U.S. Senate:

The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session.

Republican senators need to move to the center, not the president. That’s what the country voted for in 2008. The GOP, with help from conservative Democrats, is ramping up the political rhetoric about Obama, but failing this country.

(Could the 2010 Oklahoma legislative session get ugly because of the state budget crisis? Read DocHoc's commentary this week in the Oklahoma Gazette, the state's finest alternative weekly. Be sure to read a different view about the session, too.)

On Feb. 1, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe released this statement about President Barack Obama’s budget:

Today’s budget released by President Obama proves how disingenuous the spending freeze he touted during the State of the Union address last week really was. The new budget includes billions in new spending, higher taxes, and continued deficit spending. With twenty kids and grandkids of my own, it is their futures I am concerned for because the spending decisions included in Obama’s budget will saddle future generations with enormous debt. Instead of increased spending, we should make hard decisions, exercise fiscal restraint, and tighten Washington’s spending belt like every household across this country is doing.

Note all the sanctimonious concern about the children and the future, even though Inhofe sat on the sidelines as former President George Bush squandered a budget surplus and drove this country into debt because of tax cuts for the rich and two botched military occupations. Now, suddenly, it’s all about the kids.

Or is it? The very next day, Inhofe released this statement about defense spending in the budget:

Defending America is the number one constitutionally-mandated function of government. While there are good programs included in the President’s budget, the core defense budget will fall from 3.6 percent of GDP in FY11 to 3.2 percent of GDP by FY15. That’s not doing enough to protect this nation. When the cost of simply operating and sustaining our military outpaces inflation on average by 3 percent each year, these levels of funding do not allow us to properly take care of our men and women in uniform, fully fund operations overseas, modernize our aging military fleets, and properly sustain our old equipment.

What about the children now? This is more than a typical argument for more defense spending. This is rhetorical subterfuge. Inhofe wants it both ways. The poor children and grandchildren will suffer because of a big, bad terrible budget on one day. The very next day, it’s, hey, we need a lot more military spending in this country. In his first statement, Inhofe talks about households tightening their spending belts; in the second statement, he fails to mention anything about spending restraint or even basic oversight.

Inhofe can get away with his consistent contradictions because the corporate media in the state will not hold him accountable. Obviously, politicians contradict themselves all the time, but this example is so politically expedient, one might think it would draw some local media attention. Don’t count on it.

As two more potential winter storms approach the Oklahoma City area, let me state the obvious: The city needs better planning when it comes to snow plowing and de-icing streets.

The two most recent severe snow and ice storms here are somewhat unusual for Oklahoma City, and those workers who helped to clear some of the city’s streets during and after the storms are to be commended for working long hours and doing the best job they could under the city’s prevailing emergency snow plans. The workers aren’t the problem.

But the plans do need improvement. During the last storm, which came in Jan. 28, some major downtown roads were either not plowed at all or were not sufficiently plowed days after the storm ended. It was so bad that schools in Oklahoma City could not resume classes until Wednesday, five days after the storm ended. Even with all the usual qualifications and caveats, that should be simply unacceptable.

The non-plowing was an even bigger problem after the Christmas Eve blizzard, but most people would concede that weather event was truly historic in its size and intensity. Still, the city, with proper emergency snow planning, could have done a lot better.

This is an issue that transcends personal convenience. How much did the city lose in tax revenue because of the loss of productivity during these storms? How many businesses, for example, had to simply shut down? How much business was lost because of the condition of the city streets?

Meanwhile, the federal government has to bail out Oklahoma again because of the storms. Oklahoma is home to many people who supposedly hold anti-government sentiments, but one has to wonder where the state would be right now without consistent federal disaster assistance after severe weather events, such as the last two snow storms. Overall, Oklahoma is a “receiver” state when it comes to federal taxes, which means it gets back more money from the federal government that it pays in taxes.

But let’s put aside the state’s chronic reliance on the federal government for basic survivability. There are at least three questions obvious to many Oklahoma City residents who were recently stuck in their homes or had to risk injury or even death by getting out on the streets. (1) Why won’t the city purchase more plows? (2) Why can’t the city contract more with other cities, states or companies to come in and plow during a severe storm emergency? (3) Why can’t the city expand plowing to more streets, including neighborhood roads?

These questions deserve public debate among the mayor and council members. Maybe the discussion can include information on how other metropolitan cities handle snow emergencies.

The city’s leaders are sure to make excuses about this issue, especially during these tough financial times, but better planning and preparation for severe snow and ice storms would make a big difference in the quality of life here.