The Tragic Alibi

A common plot device in old noir movies is the tragic alibi. The falsely accused antihero can't defend himself because admitting what he was actually up to might be even worse. So, for instance, he faces a false murder charge because he can't divulge his only alibi — he was sleeping with the police chief's wife at the time of the killing.

I was reminded of this while reading Kevin Drum's excellent summary of the inconsistencies and gaps in President Bush's account of his National Guard service during the Vietnam War.

(If you haven't been reading Calpundit for coverage of this issue you've been missing out. Kevin has scooped the official press on this story for the past several weeks, providing a probing but fair look at the evidence, including primary documents hard to find elsewhere.)

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that despite its incompleteness and inconsistency, George W. Bush's account of his Guard service is essentially accurate.

That would mean that, during wartime, he secured a leave from his military service in order to dedicate himself to the 1972 Senate campaign of Winton "Red" Blount, an old friend of the Bush family. Jessica Walker reports in The Montgomery Advertiser that Blount's son, Winton Blount III:

… remembered Bush as a tireless worker during his father's campaign, who pulled six- and seven-day work weeks traveling around Alabama. He said Bush rented an apartment in Montgomery, and sometimes stayed with Blount relatives in Birmingham when he was on the road.

I know little about Winton Blount II. This timeline of his life, also from the Advertiser, says nothing about the principles he stood for in his 1972 campaign. (Although it does note that he oversaw the construction of the $2 billion King Saud University near Riyadh, confirming, by the transitive property of oligarchy, that he was indeed an old friend of the Bush family.)

But this was Alabama in 1972. It is possible, but not likely, that Mr. Blount's campaign was dramatically different from other Republican campaigns of 1972, as the GOP's racist "southern strategy" was creating a polar shift in party identification throughout the South. Participation in a Republican campaign in Alabama in 1872 would have been a badge of honor. George W. Bush's enthusiastic participation in such a campaign in 1972 raises more questions than it answers.

So — memo to the press/blogosphere: Tell me more about Blount's 1972 campaign. What did it stand for? What kind of vision of America was young W. promoting so avidly?

Depending on the answer to that question, Bush's own account of his activities in 1972 may turn out to be a tragic alibi.