Thomas Lipscomb looks at John F. Kerry’s much-ballyhooed release of records—and discovers that like so much to do with Kerry, it’s a shell game: Did Kerry really release Navy records?

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth head John O’Neill, who raised many of the charges against Kerry during the campaign, was challenged by Kerry on “Meet the Press” in January. Kerry promised he would sign his Standard Form 180, but he wanted former Swift Boat officer O’Neill to sign as well.

O’Neill did sign it and provided copies to the Chicago Sun-Times. According to O’Neill, “The Standard Form 180 could release ‘the full military and medical records.’ Or it could release just a few. It all depends on how it is filled out and where it was sent.”

“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.

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.

“If you take a look at my SF 180,” O’Neill said, “you will see I have authorized the total release of all my records to anyone requesting to see them. But without seeing how Kerry’s SF 180 was filled out, everyone is only guessing about what was released.”

So how an SF 180 is filled out is as important as signing it. But no one in the press has yet claimed to have seen a copy of Kerry’s SF-180. When asked if she had a copy of Kerry’s SF 180, the Globe’s Managing Editor Mary Jane Wilkinson said, “I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know if anyone here has.”