Translation: Kerry wants to see what is in his record before signing authorization to allow others to receive the information. Signing an SF 180 means that others can receive the contents of Kerry's military files without Kerry acting as a filter or intermediary. I suspect that he knows what is in the records. More than likely, he will try to have negative items removed prior to signing a SF 180. Hopefully, someone within DOD will leak it if Kerry tries some behind the scenes nonsense.
Personally, I want to see the documentation surrounding his first PH. He has never released an after action report or casualty report for this award.
Excellent points..thanks..if he doesn't sign it..he's finished as a candidate..he's got to do it within a month or so, otherwise the MSM will know something's there..IS there any way he could try and have something removed from thefile without THAT request becoming part of the record?
why doesn't any journalist have the cojones to ask why do you feel the need to review your files, you should know what is in there, sounds like you got something to hide? challenge him to to it....
I don't believe Bush had that luxury when the press received documents on his military record under the FOIA?
"More than likely, he will try to have negative items removed prior to signing a SF 180. Hopefully, someone within DOD will leak it if Kerry tries some behind the scenes nonsense."
I agree with that 100%. The SwiftVets crippled Kerry's campaign and he still wouldn't sign, that makes it obvious there is something that smells in his records, but Kerry never expected the SwiftVets would mount such a powerful campaign of their own so he never 'cleaned things up' before his campaign.
Kerry, IMO wants to run again, he knows this time he has to neutralize the SwiftVets and the only way to do that is to sign 180, so he must believe that he has a 'Sandy Berger' somewhere to clean things up before he signs.
I don't believe Kerry is stupid enough (I may be wrong ;-) ) to think that everyone is going to forget that he publicly said he would sign 180 or he would never have said "yes", he would have just given his usual evasive answers. Kerry may have actually asked Russert to bring up 180 in order to get this done 'early' before the next elections so that 'time' can muddle things a bit if not all the dirt can be neatly cleaned away.
I hope the government has several different people watching Kerry's files, with all the rats you need back-up observers. Ideally the government has copies of all his records elsewhere and when Kerry thinks he has sufficently coerced others to change his records for him and signs a release, the true ones will be reinserted...LOL