Putting Kerry's Form 180 to Bed

According to the Boston Globe, John Kerry has finally authorized his military records to be released via a form 180:

On May 20, Kerry signed a document called Standard Form 180, authorizing the Navy to send an ''undeleted" copy of his ''complete military service record and medical record" to the Globe. Asked why he delayed signing the form for so long, Kerry said in a written response: ''The call for me to sign a 180 form came from the same partisan operatives who were lying about my record on a daily basis on the Web and in the right-wing media. Even though the media was discrediting them, they continued to lie. I felt strongly that we shouldn't kowtow to them and their attempts to drag their lies out."

Ignoring Kerry's rhetoric (as most Americans did in 2004), the important sentence in this story to me is not what was found by Globe reporter Michael Kranish (not much), but the interesting use of ellipses in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph:

On May 20, Kerry signed a document called Standard Form 180, authorizing the Navy to send an ''undeleted" copy of his ''complete military service record and medical record" to the Globe.

Why did Kranish feel a need to put "undeleted" and "complete military service record and medical record" in apostrophes? Was he unsure that he was getting a full and complete collection of documents as promised?

Kranish is sure to know that on the standard form 180 currently in use (h/t Blogs For Bush), Kerry would have had the option to release "undeleted" sections of his record for specific years or ranges of years, perhaps excluding years that may have contained information that may have raised troubling questions about Kerry's military service. At no point in the Globe article does Kranish mention specific dates of service (other than the December 2, 1968 Purple Heart incident) covered in the released documents, nor a date range, so this is impossible to verify.

To help clear this up, it would be very interesting to know if Globe reporter Kranish or any other staffer actually saw the form 180 submitted by Senator Kerry.

It would also be helpful if Kranish, who has been a bit too chummy with Kerry in the past for some people's comfort, would make a simple declaration that he did not find or withhold any information about Kerry's military record not already released to the public by the press.

Toward that end, I sent a simple email to the Globe ombudsman (ombud@globe.com) asking him to please pass along the following two questions to Mr. Kranish:

1. Did you (Mr. Kranish) or any other member of the Boston Globe see John Kerry's Form 180 before it was submitted to verify that he asked for a full and UNDELETED Report of Separation for his ENTIRE service record?

2. Did you (Mr. Kranish) or any other member of the Boston Globe
discover and/or withhold any new information from Senator Kerry's
military or medical records that were not previously released by John
Kerry or his staff regarding his military or medical service?

Quite frankly, I hope that Mr. Kranish can say for certain that he saw all of Senator Kerry's record, and that he found nothing substantial that the rest of us didn't already know.

I want to put this turkey to bed.

Note: Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, Blogs for Bush, Michelle Malkin and Just One Minute are just some of the bloggers that have more coverage.

Update: Fixed a bad word choice, putting "apostrophes" in to replace and improper use of "ellipses." My readers are too smart for me to get away with blogging before my morning coffee...