If Kerry bowed to right-wing pressure last year and given them the records because he actually felt he had something to prove to them, what would be next? Accepting their challenge to debate them in that god-awful Sinclair Media propoganda "Stolen Honor" event? Allowing them to examine his scars live on television the night before the election? Each ridiculous demand would top the next, and each would be backed by the warbloggers with the proud standby that "if he doesn't say yes, he's hiding something."
More than that, assuredly Jeff Gerth would've stepped in and figured out that if you translated the records into German and back, and then read some sort of Adam Nagourney misinterpretation of something Kerry had said, you could claim there was some sort of minor discrepancy which could be divined if you'd drank a lot of tequila while reading Peggy Noonan columns, and this would blow up into 4 more months of "questions."
The point is that as long as our liberal media is willing to run unsubstantiated bullshit and accusations from the right nonstop, it's silly to imagine that anything can innoculate us against it. That isn't to say there's good strategy and bad strategy in the face of it, but in this particular case I think Kerry's actions may have been correct. At least, I think it's wrong to believe that had he signed the release previously it would have had any noticeable effect on the Chris Matthews election narrative.