One glaring omission from the SOTU address last night: Not one mention of the name Katrina.
Perhaps this (warning: PDF) is why. It's the preliminary General Accounting Office report on Katrina...and it's not good for the administration.
I haven't poured over the entire GAO report so there are probably some good nuggets to bring to light. In the meantime, the AP has a summary here.
The White House and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff failed to provide decisive action when Hurricane Katrina struck, congressional investigators said Wednesday in a stinging assessment of slow federal relief efforts.
The White House had no clear chain of command in place, investigators with the Government Accountability Office said, laying much of the blame on President Bush for not designating a single official to coordinate federal decision-making for the Aug. 29 storm.
Seems the 'great delegator' had other things to worry about on his vacation.
They also officially slap Chertoff for not appropriately designating the storm:
The assessment -- the first of several reports about the response to Katrina -- noted that Chertoff authorized additional federal assistance to overwhelmed state and local resources on Aug. 30, a day after the storm hit. But Chertoff did not specifically classify the storm as a catastrophic disaster, which would have triggered a faster response.
Remember, they knew in plenty of time this storm was going to be a disaster.
They simply cannot govern.