This time, Dubya really was AWOL!

Late in the 2000 campaign, the general who commanded the Air Force base to which George W. Bush was attached (not actually assigned) during his active service tour with the National Guard remarked that he didn't remember seeing Dubya on base during that time. There were three problems with that statement.

The first is that within 24 hours, numerous witnesses came forward, and official records were produced, which conclusively proved that, in fact, Mr. Bush was on the base during the period in question.

The second is that, as it turned out, he wasn't required to be. His relationship with the base was merely administrative; that's where he would do whatever training and so forth might be required, but he had permission to be off base working on a political campaign.

Finally, when confronted with the evidence, the general pointed out that all he'd said was that he didn't remember seeing Mr. Bush there, not that he wasn't there- and that there were many other things he didn't remember, since he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease!

Nevertheless, the story wouldn't die. Four years later, John Kerry repeated the accusation.

But in November of 2020, George W. Bush was AWOL. So was Gen. James Mattis. So was Gen. John Kelly. So was Sen. Mitt Romney. So was former Sec. of State Rex Tillerson. So were former National Security Advisors H.R. McMaster and John Bolton.

All of them have expressed the conviction either that Donald Trump was unfit to be President of the United States or that his policies undermined our national security. And all of them had a duty to publicly say so before yesterday's election.

Things might have gone differently yesterday had they held a joint press conference and expressed their convictions openly and with a united voice. Doubtless, a great many Americans who have watched Mr. Trump's erratic and bizarre performance as president without comprehension of what they were seeing or how serious it was would have been awakened to the danger Mr. Trump has represented to our nation every moment that he's remained in office.

But they didn't. And in failing to do so, they failed their country.

And as I heard Tim Miller observed minutes ago, the hell of it is that if, as seems likely, Joe Biden turns out to have won yesterday's election, they are going to feel vindicated.