Grandma's House

On Meet The Press Sunday, John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, finally agreed to release his military records, sort of.

Appearing on the same show last April, Kerry insisted all his military records were already in the public domain, telling Russert, "I've shown them - they're available to you to come and look at."

All the records? Well, not quite all of them.

"A Freedom of Information Act request by The (Washington) Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages."

Oh, my. That is a bit of a discrepancy, isn't it? Can you explain that, Johnny?

On Sunday Kerry attempted to explain the discrepancy, telling Russert, "We put all the records out that I had been sent by the military."
"Then at the last moment, they sent some more stuff, which had some things that weren’t even relevant to the record. So when we get - I’m going to sit down with them and make sure that they are clear and I am clear as to what is in the record and what isn’t in the record and we’ll put it out. I have no problem with that."

So he wants to evaluate the information before releasing it. What do you want to bet we'd never see it all?

When Russert pressed Kerry, "Would you sign Form 180?" - authorizing the Pentagon to release of his full file, Kerry at first tried to dodge the question. But after he was asked about Form 180 for the third time, the top Democrat finally relented, telling the "Meet the Press" host, "Yes, I will."

Hallelujah! It's a miracle! But wait, there's more. You didn't think he'd do it out of the goodness of his heart, did you?

Kerry then added a bizarre demand of his own, saying that the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the group of Vietnam veterans who led the questioning of his military record, should also sign Form 180:

"I'd call on those who have challenged me, let's see their records," he said. "I want to see the records of each of those people who have put up a challenge, because some of them have some serious questions in them, and it hasn't been appropriate."

I daresay, their records will be cleaner than his. But he'll cast aspersions anyway. It's his lot in life.