Not once in his speech did President Bush ever make any mention about Hurricane Katrina.

To be honest, earlier this week when I decided I would write a critique of President Bush’s State of the Union address, I didn’t think he’d do that good. But all in all, his speech was fairly decent. In fact, it was a great speech.

It just lacked specificity.

It also lacked the actual State of our Union. The way I perceive it (and the way many Americans perceive it), Bush lives in his own little bubble — he doesn’t see the hardships the average American sees. Instead he sees the world as he saw it before he ever entered public office — as a rich man’s son.

Bush brought up some very important key items: terrorism, the Iraq war, the rise of democracy in the world, North Korea and Iran and much more. He even brought up our dependence on oil and how we should push programs aimed at eliminating that dependence (although I’m a bit skeptical that using woodchips as an alternative fuel source would really work).

Here’s what gets me: Bush mentioned “terror” (or any variation of the word) about 20 times, and Iraq 16 times. But not once in his speech did President Bush ever make any mention about Hurricane Katrina. Nor did he mention how he planned to help those in need in the South. It’s almost as if he had completely forgotten about it.

I find it odd that an event that happened less than seven months ago, an event that killed over 1,300 people, can be so disrespectfully ignored.

Now, I’m not one of those who think that the Federal Government was the only player fit to blame in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There were mistakes at all levels of government, both local and federal. But to not even mention the government’s ill response to a natural disaster — and how he plans to fix it — is just plain stupid

Maybe he ignored it for a reason; this week, it was discovered that, despite him saying the contrary, Bush and his administration did anticipate the breech of the levees. Which means that this administration misled us once again. How many times must we be misled before we hold this administration accountable?

This was the State of the Union address; he was supposed to discuss the state that our nation is in. And, a good chunk of our nation — namely, citizens from Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas — has been misplaced by a natural disaster. They deserve to know why, and how the government intends to protect them in the future. Otherwise, New Orleans and the South may never be the same.

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