linux-2.4.33
installing Python-2.5.tar.bz2 9357099 bytes

During the first configure/make process, there were no errors until compilation failed.
Looking back at the configure output, I see:
...[clip]...
checking for UCS-4 tcl... no
...[clip]...

Because during make, it said:
...[clip]...
/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c:80:2: #error "Tk older than 8.2 not supported"
/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c:92:2: #error "unsupported Tcl configuration"
...[clip]...and many pages of:...
/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c:xxxx: errors

Ok, so I upgraded the tk and tcl packages without incident.

Now, Why during the clean re-configuration, do I get the same message, and also an error in the config.log that matches??

make did (appear to) finish ok

Perhaps this may have relevance to the other bug.
[ 1653753 ] crash / abort during install

config.log is attached there.

Are you sure compilation (of Python) failed? If make finished ok, then the compilation indeed succeeded. Failure to build an extension module (such as Tkinter) is not considered a failure of the entire build. Instead, if the module cannot build (e.g. because the header files are missing), the build is just skipped (either entirely or partially).

IOW, I cannot see a bug here; closing the report as "won't fix".

If you want to find out why it didn't build _tkinter, you should check the compiler command line to find out where it found the Tcl header files.

I am not sure now that compilation failed.
With all the errors generated, and the lack of a familiar 
make[1]: Leaving directory

left me thinking it failed. But you're right, it did not end with 
make: *** [all] Error 1

I don't see any tk/tcl libraries mentioned in the gcc line that started producing errors:

building '_tkinter' extension
/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c:80:2: #error "Tk older than 8.2 not supported"
/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c:92:2: #error "unsupported Tcl configuration"
gcc -pthread -fPIC -fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -DWITH_APPINIT=1 -I/usr/X11R6/include -I. -I/usr/src/Python-2.5/./Include -I./Include -I. -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/src/Python-2.5/Include -I/usr/src/Python-2.5 -c /usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.c -o build/temp.linux-i686-2.5/usr/src/Python-2.5/Modules/_tkinter.o

Can't go back and test it, now that tk/tcl is upgraded.
I agree, close.