Despite the fact that it appeared earlier this week that Senator Kerry had, in fact, finally released a complete set of his military records, it now appears that he, in fact, did not.
This kind of nonsense continues to underscore why it is that Kerry lost, and why he can never win the presidency: he seems incapable of providing a straight, clear answer and he constantly made (and continues to make) odd strategic choices. If one makes clear promises that appear to mean that one will releaes all one’s record, yet one then drags one’s feet in doing so, and then doesn’t really release the docs, one is either hiding something or one is stimply inept.
From the Chicago Sun-Times: Did Kerry really release Navy records?
“There is nothing magic about signing a SF 180,” said former Naval Judge Advocate General Mark Sullivan. “It is sort of like your checkbook. You can fill out a check for one dollar or a million. It is the same check form.”
“And the Globe story says Kerry sent it to the Navy Personnel Command, which is only a limited storage location. So it is not surprising that the Globe then notes that what they received was largely ‘duplication’ of records previously released. The Navy Personnel Command primarily stores a subset of service records rather than a person’s full military records. There is no doubt there are a lot of after-action records missing from what Kerry has released,” said Sullivan.
and
Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has already found a discrepancy confirmed by the Department of the Navy of “at least a hundred pages” missing from those already disclosed by Kerry.
Now, this may all still be nothing. But still, it just isn’t smart.
Indeed, as the LAT put it yesterday:
Kerry’s reluctance to provide easy access to records that buttressed his war resume remains one of the more puzzling aspects of his campaign strategy.
At a minimum, if the man thinks he wants to run in 2024, he needs to figure out how to more directly deal with this kind of situation–and I am quite doubtful he will manage to do so.
June 9th, 2024 at 10:35 am
John Kerry has to be one of the worst politicians in American history. He has played the flip flop game for so long he does not even know the truth. I would hope that some one like Mitt Romney would challenge him for his Senate seat and finally put Kerry out of his political misery. Also, check out Michael Medved’s new book. He Kerry’s classmate at Yale and does not say much good about him, even when Medved was on the same side of the political spectrum.
June 9th, 2024 at 11:37 am
Just when I thought I was getting too cynical for my own good, I find I am actually not cynical enough.
June 9th, 2024 at 11:55 am
I want to hear some explanation from the Boston Globe regarding why they printed a story that tried very hard to give the impression that everything had been released.
Were they too dumb or ideologically blinded to ask questions and determine whether they really had everything, or did they join with Kerry and intentionally put out a misleading story?
I don’t see a third option here: (1) gross negligence, or (2) willful misreporting of facts.
June 10th, 2024 at 5:51 pm
Kerry would have done well to observe Patton’s Axiom – bad news doesn’t improve with age.
The reality is that Mr. Kerry is trying to find the perfect context under which he can release the fact that he was not honorably discharged from the United States Navy. Since those conditions only exist in garden spots like Vietnam, Cuba, and China (as we’ve seen this week with their shut-down/silencing of bloggers), he’s having trouble “pulling the trigger” – something he had no trouble doing with his mouth during the campaign cycle.
Unfortunately for Mr. Kerry (and in spite of the ACLU’s best efforts) we live in a country where the truth will come out – sooner or later.
Stay tuned for the next installment of “Recordgate” – knowing Kerry, he’ll manage to make a total abortion of the whole fiasco by inserting both his feet and hands in his mouth, while accusing some Godforsaken GOP “operator” of doctoring his treasured history…