…why Kerry continues to refuse to sign SF 180 and release all of his military records. There have been rumors swirling about this for a while, but it’s looking more and more like his discharge from the Navy may have been less than honorable.

And much of his subsequent political career has been spent in attempting to repair that blot on his vital narrative of “John Kerry, Vietnam Hero”

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry’s medals were reissued.

[2:30 PM EDT update]

More thoughts over at the Beldar Blog.

Even if this isn’t the issue, the question won’t go away–why is Kerry and his campaign stonewalling on the service records? If this isn’t what he’s hiding, is it something else? Something worse?