The moment we've all been waiting for

John Kerry has signed the SF 180 form, once and for all clearing up questions about questionable conduct in his military record.

Or maybe he hasn't.

"I have signed it,” Kerry said. Then, he added that his staff was "still going through it" and ‘’very, very shortly, you will have a chance to see it.”

The devil is usually in the details. With Kerry, it’s also in the dodges and digressions. After the interview, Kerry’s communications director, David Wade, was asked to clarify when Kerry signed SF 180 and when public access would be granted. Kerry drifted over to join the conversation, immediately raising the confusion level. He did not answer the question of when he signed the form or when the entire record will be made public.

Several e-mails later, Wade conveyed the following information: On Friday, May 20, Kerry obtained a copy of Form 180 and signed it. ‘’The next step is to send it to the Navy, which will happen in the next few days. The Navy will then send out the records,” e-mailed Wade. Kerry first said he would sign Form 180 when pressed by Tim Russert during a Jan. 30 appearance on ‘’Meet the Press.”

Six months after Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush, it feels somewhat gratuitous to point out how hard it can be to get a clear, straight answer from Kerry on this and other matters. But as long as the Massachusetts senator is thinking about another presidential run, the candor gap remains on the table, because he puts it there.

This has to be the worst-managed stonewall in history. If he's not going to release the records, he should try to come up with some quasi-legitimate and sympathetic excuse. If he is going to release the records, he should do it now. Why wait until more than 100 days after he promised to release them? It's as if he wants to create his own Watergate, but the public just doesn't care enough about him to make it front page news.

HT: PoliPundit.