An excellent piece by Buzz Patterson on the important stories about John Kerry that are being ignored and buried by mainstream media as they search for a last minute hit on President Bush: What’s Kerry Hiding?

The only 180 John Kerry hasn’t accomplished in his litany of flip-flops throughout his campaign is Standard Form 180, the paperwork necessary for the complete release of his military records from the Department of Defense repository.

The Kerry campaign and website continue to claim he has released all military records. In fact, they’ve released the few documents painting the senator in a favorable light. There are at least 100 pages, promising to be much more revealing, still unseen. Kerry controls their release. All he has to do is sign the Form 180. To date, he has refused.

It goes without saying the main stream media isn’t clamoring for him to comply although they hounded President George Bush relentlessly to release his Air National Guard records. Bush, by the way, did the right thing—he signed his Form 180. Kerry has made his naval service the focal point for his election. Shouldn’t we expect the war hero to open his military service to America? Where is the outrage (I ask tongue-in-cheek)? Where is the objective journalism? More realistically, what is Kerry hiding?

Thomas Lipscomb writing for the New York Sun and Geoff Metcalf of NewsMax.com have been pursuing Kerry’s military record irregularities and his refusal to authorize their release tirelessly. Without Kerry’s assistance, however, it will take a critical and very timely leak or we will never know the truth behind Kerry’s military service in time for it to make the difference. …

As for every veteran, the truth will be found in form DD214, the official Department of Defense document of release from military obligation given to Kerry when he exited military service on July 1, 1972. It is conspicuously absent from the documents released so far. Everyone serving in the military receives a DD214 the day they separate or retire from service. My suspicion along with a growing number of military personnel is that Kerry received an “other than honorable” discharge in the early 1970s as a consequence of his vehement anti-US, anti-military activities with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and his potentially treasonous tete-a-tetes with North Vietnamese Communist officials in Paris. If not, let him release his records. If so, America should demand the release.

Kerry’s activities during his post-war political resume building efforts are expressly prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 104, Part 904; the United States Code Title 18, Section 953 (18 USC Sec. 953); and, arguably, the Constitution, Article 3, Section 3. In fact, the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, Section 3 declares, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President … (who has) engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” In another time and another place, at a minimum, Kerry would have faced courts martial. In another time and another place, Kerry would be breaking big rocks into little rocks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military penitentiary. Today, he stands on the brink of election as the leader of the free world.

Kerry has built an entire career based solely on four months in Vietnam and two years of post-war protesting. For a politician to have built so much on, and been so successful with, a foundation consisting largely of self-promotion, lies, and unpatriotic (some say treasonous) endeavors is utterly fantastic and extremely tenuous. And the Dems know it—ergo, the refusal on the part of the Kerry campaign to release the entirety of his military service records.