..............
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/kerry_allows_navy_release_of_military_medical_records/
Here ya go, Kerry signed his 180 for full release (to Kranish) on May 20, 2005. Nobody but Kranish has it, and he read everything and found nothing new, just more praises and laurels for Jon. WE don't get to see it but the Boston Globe has it all locked away somewhere.
But, Jon Carry can honestly rebut your demand by stating that he DID "sign the 180" on May 20, 2005.
"The evil Swiftboaters are after me again..."
..............
They WERE released in proper accordance with the SF 180- and he filed with the proper agency- but did not release to the public. He can do that.
The person holding the data is that Globe reporter, not Kerry! Kerry put onto his release forms that everything went to Kranish (and if you read the article, the only thing Kranish says is that there are many more commendations than Kerry had mentioned).
The Globe guy is the one who must release them to the public. He is under no obligation to either release, or keep them, he can shred them if he wants to or has wanted to since 2005.
Kerry was clever in doing this, he signed the 180, released his records, and now it’s not his fault nor responsibility if we can’t pore over them in detail.
Thanks for the heads up. ;) He signed it, but won’t release the results. How cute.
While the Swift Boat Veterans story got a lot of coverage, Elliott’s supposed flip-flop was always mentioned, and was used by the “pro-Kerry” side of the debate to show that Elliott (and the whole Swift Boat Vets group, by implication) was less than credible and perhaps a bit flaky.
Well, now it turns out that Elliott is claiming that he was misquoted by the Boston Globe. He has signed a new affidavit, re-affirming the old and describing the Boston Globe story by Kanish as “extremely inaccurate”:
Captain George Elliott describes an article appearing in today’s edition of the Boston Globe by Mike Kranish as extremely inaccurate and highly misstating his actual views. He reaffirms his statement in the current advertisement paid for by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Captain Elliott reaffirms his affidavit in support of that advertisement, and he reaffirms his request that the ad be played.
******
The day after the ad was released, Mike Kranish of the Boston Globe wrote an article in which he stated that one of the swift boat veterans responsible for the ad had retracted his statements about John Kerry and was sorry that he had become involved. That veteran, George Elliot, quickly responded to the article by stating that Mike Kranish had written a very misleading article and that he stood by his statements on Kerry. Soon after Mr. Elliot released his statement, Drudge posted that Mr. Kranish had actually been hired to write the forward for the Kerry/Edwards campaign book, which would be a huge conflict of interest as Mr. Kranish was also covering the campaign in an official capacity of the Globe. Friday evening, Hugh Hewitt posted on his blog a statement by Boston Globe editor Martin Baron that flatly denied that Kranish had contracted to write for an official Kerry/Edwards campaign book. Hugh wondered as to the effect of the Drudge piece on Kranish’s reputation. However, in an interesting twist, Drudge and several other blogs including Instapundit, have linked to a screen capture from Public Affairs that clearly lists Mike Kranish of the Boston Globe as the author of a “penetrating” introduction to the book. Drudge also links to the same page where it appears that the references to Mike Kranish have been removed from the description of the book.
National Review Online contributing editor Michael Novak is a neighbor of Captain Elliott’s, and he’s written a bit about the man, and a bit about why Captain Elliott and other SwiftVets had occasion to revise their opinions of Sen. John Kerry:
One of the most important of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth turns out to be a neighbor of mine, and so I’ve been lucky enough to have a few chats with him this summer. Captain George Elliott is a graduate of Annapolis, his back is still straight, and he deeply loves and honors the United States Navy. I want to keep what we talk about off the record, so as to not mix friendship with work. But there is one point I’ve learned from him that is so important to the ongoing debate, especially on the Kerry side (that is, the Big Media side), that I asked his permission to present it in public.
In recent days, I’ve heard at least three Kerry-supporting journalists say that the story of the Swift Boat Vets is crumbling. That certainly surprised me, so I listened carefully. One of the three or four instances they glancingly cited concerned Captain Elliott’s testimony on behalf of Kerry in the Senate campaign of 1996.
They have missed an absolutely crucial point. In 1996, Kerry was being accused by a journalist of having committed war crimes. Captain Elliott and others hated this charge with regard to anything that occurred under their command, and so, putting out of mind Kerry’s use of the same charge in 1971 against them and their fellows in Vietnam, these good men were willing to go to Boston “to defend the honor of the U.S. Navy,” this time in the person of John Kerry. Thus, Captain Elliott’s support of Kerry in 1996 does not contradict the criticism he makes now. And he is far from backing down in his support for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He is painfully truthful himself, and is scrupulous in choosing his words.
That much I quote from Captain Elliott. What comes next is my own.
Close followers of this debate will know that the paperwork describing the actions on which Kerry’s Silver and Bronze Stars were originally based came from Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry’s reports, passed up until they came to Captain Elliott. The Navy system is based on the honor code.
Only when they read the accounts published in the campaign biographies by Douglas Brinkley and a team from the Boston Globe did Kerry’s superiors and peers, including Captain Elliott, come to see how widely Kerry’s perception and self-serving descriptions differed from reality. Beginning then, they started to reevaluate everything they had heard from him back then. The man presented in those books was not the man they knew, and the events were not the events they knew. In wartime, one must trust one’s mates. After they saw those books, they saw what Kerry reported to them then in a new light.
I infer that Captain Elliott and others in 1969 took on trust some reports from Kerry, reports they can no longer consider as truthful as they thought them before.
But that reporter, and another from IIRC the LA Times, are not the only ones holding that data. It's in the National Military Archives in St. Louis. All it takes is another SF-180, this time releasing the information to all who wish to see it, or maybe just all members of the press. But of course no one in the MSM is going to ask Mr. Ketchup why he hasn't done that, rather than release it to "friendly" reporters.