Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely asserted that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) “did not get his Form 180 records released that show his naval records” because the “records that he released only gave his grades from Yale.” In fact, Kerry authorized the full release of his military records to The Boston Globe when he signed Standard Form 180, according to the Navy.

Though John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, co-authors of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery, August 2004), have responded to the Globe by insisting that the newly released documents do not constitute Kerry's full military record, The New York Sun reported on June 9 that Kerry released his military records from both the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and the Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tennessee, citing Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Hernandez, who confirmed the Globe's report that the documents it reviewed are Kerry's “whole record.”

In separate June 7 articles, The Boston Globe reported that it had obtained Kerry's complete military file, including medical and education records. The Globe emphasized Kerry's mediocre grades over the report that his full military records provided no new information about his service, even though the latter revelation definitively proved that smears by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the presidential campaign were baseless.

From the June 9 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: [T]he Kerry story on the records is that, since you [caller] bring it up. This is a, this is -- he's trying to fake everybody out. He did not get his Form 180 records released that show his naval records. He didn't do that. He has not come forth with that. The records that he released only gave his grades from Yale. And he's hoping that this satisfied everybody. He still has not come forth and signed what's necessary to produce his records in the Navy, and that's what everybody's curious about.