I respectfuly disagree with your opinion that Kerry will be able to write-off a less-than-honorable discharge.

If true (that Kerry was less than honorably discharged - and that this was later changed), then Kerry MUST respond.

This will put his anti-Vienam "activism" back on the front burner, and with it - the litany of Stolen valor/Swiftie charges.

These charges undermine Kerry's credibility as CINC and as a "trustable" defender of USA interests, and therefore MUST hurt him at the polls.

In a close race this can be decisive.

Perhaps Kerry is waiting to release all his military records as HIS "October surprise"?

Although it would have been much more effective to do so right after the Swiftvet's first ad aired. Would have stopped them in their tracks.

My post about this topic on my own blog includes the text of the statutes as in effect during the relevant time periods; they're somewhat hard to locate since they've since been superseded.

Keep in mind that there is a HUGE difference between a dishonorable discharge and a less than honorable discharge. There are several classes of discharge in between. Most (if not all) of the less than honorable ones can be upgraded to an honorable after five years. Having a less than honorable discharge prevents you from collecting benefits but it generally has no negative impact other than that. A perfect example is someone who gets injured during boot camp and is separated. They generally get either a medical or administrative discharge. Another reason is unautorized absence (UA). You have to be gone 30 days to be AWOL. When I was in the Navy, the quickest way to get out was to disappear for 29 days. We used to lose a couple a year this way. When they got back to the ship the skipper would give them and admin discharge and they would go home. It was a simple as that. Although you are correct that the exact nature of Kerry's discharge, if it was initially less than honorable, may amount to nothing, you cannot at this point totally discount the possibility that it could be damaging.

If Kerry took a medical discharge due to post traumatic stress disorder or similar psychiatric problem he might suddenly develop a Thomas Eagleton problem.

Particularly if he is still being treated for it.

So, his tax records aren't being released because they'd show medical decductions and his medical records are redacted showing only his recover from prostate treatment and his military records are incomplete except where revised, all to cover up his medical discharge ... any one of the three secrets might be explainable but in combination?

If Kerry did have an OTH or DH discharge and revealed something contrary to law school or the Massachusetts Bar, that would seal his fate for sure.

Is there anyway to get his law school application or Bar application? He got away with wholesale lies during his Navy stint and I always say, "once a liar, always a liar"!

Given the political composition of the Massachussetts bar, if Kerry were given a less-than-honorable discharge for, say, his anti-war activities or his Paris meetings, they might have admitted him anyway.

Well we now know just what was motivating Mapes and Rather. Trying to level the playing field---"they're both dishonorable!". This attempt at tactical "moral relevance" goes to the core of the Left's lack of any real Principle. Read Falstaff's "What is honor" speech. I doubt that the Left would see the Irony. Hal was right--Jack--"Banish Jack Falstaff, banish all the world" --Hal---"I do, I will"

This may just be semantics, but in the interest of accuracy, the distinction must be made. Kerry could not have received a dishonorable discharge. Those are reserved only for enlisted personnel and noncommissioned warrant officers. Officers receive dismissals, and these are only specified by general courts martial. This is all laid out in Rule 1002 of the Manual for Cours Martial. So while it's possible that Kerry received a general discharge under honorable or other than honorable conditions, he couldn't have gotten a dishonorable discharge.

With all due respect, guys, I know there are some people who want to believe the worst about John Kerry, but lets come back to reality, shall we? Most of the negative junk you hear about Kerry's military service is part of a gigantic propaganda campaign. It's important to sort out the swill from the real facts. Most people who served with Kerry say he did a fantastic job. Nearly everyone who criticizes his service record turned against him AFTERWARDS because they disagreed with his political views. You don't get a dishonorable discharge (or equivalent) for your political views (although it's true that Nixon might have tried to pull something like that).

I really think this debate has just gone way over the edge into never-never-land. Kerry was considered a war hero earlier this year, remember? And nothing significant has come out since then, other than a massive PR campaign by people who disagreed with his political views in the 1970's. Let's snap back to reality.

And let's talk about REAL stuff, for Christ's sake. Enough of this BS.

p.s. You really believe the Democrats would be dumb enough to focus on Kerry's military record during the Democratic National Convention if he'd been dishonorably discharged (or anything remotely like it)? Please tell me you're kidding. This discussion has entered some sort of peculiar alternate reality twilight zone, and I think we need to teleport ourselves back to America, 2004.

p.p.s. You know, John Kerry is not a schmuck or a wimp. If you're operating on that premise, you're not going to understand the guy. Whatever you feel about him politically (and no, he's not a raving liberal, either; he is thoroughly moderate), I think it's helpful to cut through the political ads, which are perhaps the least reliable sources of information you can find, and search for more objective information.

(On moderation. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said recently, "The president has a solid record of accomplishment and Senator Kerry has a record that has been out of the mainstream." This is an argument you'll probably hear from Bush in the debate tonight, despite the fact that Bush is arguably the most radical president the United States has ever had. The only reason he's even in contention in this race is that the adminstration has done a semi-decent job of convincing people he's not radical, but rather a "compassionate conservative." He's not even conservative. The size of the government is ballooning and he's nation-building overseas. He's a radical -- or more accurately, his advisors are radical and he's gullible.)

"You really believe the Democrats would be dumb enough to focus on Kerry's military record during the Democratic National Convention if he'd been dishonorably discharged (or anything remotely like it)?"

Considering all the other things they routinely try to get a pass on? I'd say yes, they are certainly dumb enough and trust in a complicit press.

This looks like still another case of the "Who Farted Factor" - my indelicate naming of which might have gotten me banned from a nationally-famous conservative blog. Then again, who knows what'll cheese people off :-)

In the back of thousands of school buses each day, some kid's lower digestive tract is going to produce a horrendous bolus of very smelly gas.

Unless the bus is a very short one, he's going to shout "Awwww, who farted?" (a) to cover the noise of the fart proper (in case it's not an SBD) and (b) to distract attention from himself, the actual farter, as the source of the fart. (Scholars will note that the "Who Smelt It, Dealt It" axiom was developed specifically to foreclose on "Who Farted?" claims of innocence.)

There are many examples of the "Who Farted" theory in action:

- the current press, Web and Email campaign against Sinclair Broadcasting Group for daring to show the practical results of John Kerry's stumping for the North Vietnamese before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - in particular, Sinclair Group plans to interview victims of physical and psychological abuse of American prisoners of war by those same North Vietnamese Kerry was going around politicking for in front of Congress and an awe-struck national press, abuse which the North Vietnamese justified to their victims by quoting Kerry's testimony to them - the Kerry and other leftist press releases refer to Sinclair Group as having a partisan political agenda, as opposed to CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS... ;

- Terry McAuliffe telling reporters to go ask Karl Rove where the fake Bush Air Guard memos came from, when the head of Kerry's campaign spoke to Bill Burkett minutes before Burkett went on the air with Dan Rather.

Ditz for Hire Maureen Dowd echoed the same theory - she added the professional flourish of "this is what 'paranoid Democrats' are saying" before going into the "Karl Rove, Source of Bogus CBS Memos" story in such loving detail that, hey, you know, Dowd herself might... naaaaah;

- In the 2000 election, crowds of hostile, sullen (when they weren't openly threatening or verbally abusing others) Gore supporters surrounded polling places throughout Florida.
Suppose they might have had an intimidating effect on anyone going in to do something besides vote for Gore?

- Kerry himself peed and moaned about the people who "the Bush campaign" sent in to the crowds at his campaign appearances to disrupt the flow of his oratory - the week after four people had to be carried out of Madison Square Garden for doing the same thing during the President's acceptance speech;

Kerry committed a notorious "Who Farted?" gambit in demanding at the top of his lungs that Bush disclose every last scrap of paper in HIS military file while still refusing to submit his own Form 180 and clear up the mysteries about his own termination of service with the military.

I have to agree with the previous poster that a massive lie is lurking somewhere in those 100-odd pages in Kerry's personnel file that remain unreleased, that or something so nasty that not even Kerry's skilled Spin And Drill Team can turn it from brown underwear skidmarks into Apple Brown Betty.

The evidence is persuasive that neither "Tour of Duty" nor "Unfit for Command" is giving us the whole story on John Kerry in Vietnam.