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   > have facilitated an upgrade in 1978 if indeed Sen. Kerry's original   
   > discharge was less than honorable:   
   >   
   > The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor document is even   
   > more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President."   
   > No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president. The   
   > president at that time was James Carter. This adds another twist to the   
   > story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records.   
   >   
   > Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft   
   > dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his inauguration   
   > on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr. Carter   
   > signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it became a   
   > directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been expanded   
   > to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct,   
   > dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative   
   > effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a   
   > procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers. A   
   > satisfactory appeal would result in an improvement of discharge status or   
   > an honorable discharge....   
   >   
   > 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.   
   >   
   > Mr. Lipscomb also notes that to confirm or refute his chain of inferences,   
   > one would need Sen. Kerry's 1972-era records that could be expected to   
   > give details on whatever it was that the 1978 board proceedings were   
   > reviewing:   
   >   
   > Mr. Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would   
   > allow the release of all his military records. And some of his various   
   > spokesmen have claimed that all his records are already posted on his Web   
   > site. But the Washington Post already noted that the Naval Personnel   
   > Office admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.   
   >   
   > Mr. Lipscomb's reference here is most likely to Michael Dobb's August 22nd   
   > WaPo article, which reported:   
   >   
   > Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's   
   > full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical   
   > records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not   
   > permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of   
   > Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages   
   > of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike   
   > McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which   
   > consists of at least a hundred pages.   
   >   
   > The Navy Department also confirmed that it has unreleased records that   
   > aren't on the Kerry website in response to the Judicial Watch complaint.   
   >   
   > IV. Beldar's take on Mr. Lipscomb's article   
   > Rumors, supposition, and yes, inuendo about whether Sen. Kerry may have   
   > received a less-than-honorable discharge have swirled through the   
   > blogosphere at least since August, when the SwiftVets' ad campaign kicked   
   > off.  However, in previous articles published by the New York Sun and the   
   > Chicago Sun Times, Mr. Lipscomb has previously provided serious original   
   > investigative reporting on, for example, Sen. Kerry's documented   
   > attendance at VVAW meetings where assassinations of American political   
   > figures were seriously discussed, Sen. Kerry's re-issued Silver Star   
   > citation, the Navy Department's consideration of the Judicial Watch   
   > complaint, and the likely authorship of the 13Mar39 after-action report   
   > that likely was the basis for Kerry's Bronze Star and third Purple Heart.   
   > His latest effort is another serious attempt to probe the mysteries of   
   > Kerry's military record that most reporters, and certainly that Kerry-   
   > friend biographers like Doug Brinkley, have persistently ignored.   
   >   
   > Are the inferences Mr. Lipscomb makes in this latest article justified?   
   > Quite frankly, I lack the personal military background, and the   
   > familiarity with either the normal or unusual workings of military   
   > separation proceedings, to draw a confident conclusion or argue it here.   
   >   
   > But I'm certainly intrigued — indeed, that's too mild a word — by Mr.   
   > Lipscomb's reporting.  And there's no doubt that the Kerry campaign and   
   > Sen. Kerry himself are stonewalling.  If there is a contrary explanation   
   > for the odd timing of Sen. Kerry's honorable discharge, and documents to   
   > support that explanation, Sen. Kerry should come forward with them.  As   
   > Mr. Lipscomb's article points out, if indeed Sen. Kerry received a less-   
   > than-honorable discharge as the result of his antiwar activities while   
   > still a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve, "one might have   
   > expected him to wear it like a badge of honor" — although that spin would   
   > certainly be questioned by others who remain unpersuaded by the rationales   
   > that prompted President Carter's blanket amnesty in 1977 and, possibly,   
   > the upgrading of Sen. Kerry's discharge to honorable status in 1978 if in   
   > fact that's what happened.  And others who agreed with President Carter's   
   > actions may still, in weighing Sen. Kerry's overall military record, find   
   > it significant if in fact Sen. Kerry's original discharge needed   
   > upgrading; the fact that one's since been forgiven by an act of   
   > presidential grace doesn't necessarily block the original transgression   
   > and punishment from consideration for purposes of determining fitness now   
   > to be the nation's commander in chief.   
   >   
   > PoliPundit (hat-tip InstaPundit) has printed an email from a reader with   
   > some military and legal credentials who suggests that if Sen. Kerry's   
   > discharge was for "other than honorable" conditions, "bad conduct," or   
   > "dishonorable," that might have interfered with his admission to the   
   > Massachusetts bar in 1976.  With due respect, however, I'm entirely   
   > unpersuaded by that particular suggestion.  There were zillions of lawyers   
   > admitted to practice in the mid- and late-1970s despite convictions for   
   > protesting and minor drug offenses.  Expungements of convictions under the   
   > Federal Youth Corrections Act, for example, wiped clean the records of   
   > even felony convictions, clearing the way for a great many folks to become   
   > lawyers who'd otherwise have been disqualified, and I'm quite confident   
   > that most states' bars include members with worse records than what's   
   > being hypothesized here for Kerry.  If Kerry's original discharge was   
   > "general-honorable conditions," for example — the next rung down from an   
   > unqualified honorable discharge — I doubt that the Board of Bar Examiners   
   > would have blinked an eye, much less done any serious investigation or   
   > raised any serious reservations.  And even a lower-level discharge might   
   > very well have been forgiven for someone with Kerry's connections,   
      
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