Why does the First Lady need a security clearance? The president can tell her anything he wants to. And he doesn't have a security clearance either.

When you get a security clearance, that implies you've been vetted and approved--and that others have been rejected. Is someone going to vet and approve the First Lady? Not hardly. So why would she given a security clearance?

Actually, you're wrong. As commander in chief, the president has a security clearance -- he is cleared for all information. So are some of his advisors, even the first lady if she is desired as an advisor.

I could certainly envision a vetting process, probably by both the CIA and the FBI, for the first lady and other members of the first family. Would you have wanted Betty Ford to know about the nation's nuclear passwords when she had her drinking problem? Would you give a possibly jealous Jackie Kennedy secrets that might damage U.S. military operations? Being a family member is not, in and of itself, either a granting of clearance or of "need to know."

Cleared by who? Who runs the test, stamps the paper? The president doesn't have a security clearance because he isn't ever going to be denied one.

Other government officials go through a vetting procedure by law, but the First Lady doesn't.

Who knows what Jerry told Betty. It was up to him what he wanted to tell her.

Very true, Bill could have told her anything... but no one else could have. And as far as we can tell, no one else did.

Plain and simple she would need to have a clearance if she were to be in the room when anything related to national security was discussed. Apparently she did not, and was not. Pillow talk with Bill is not the same thing as being in the situation room.

I suppose you could say the president is vetted and cleared by the population that elects him (or her - I've no desire to be sexist). By virtue of becoming president, that person has clearance.

The first lady is not legally cleared -- she holds no public office and any classified knowledge she has is knowledge she shouldn't have without both clearance and NTK. That's legally true, even if it not practically true. So it does matter whether or not Hillary had clearance and need-to-know on operations in the Clinton White House, or at least, it matters whether or not she had that clearance if she is going to claim that experience. But we don't know, of course, because her husband has sealed all those records.

maroci:

Plain and simple she would need to have a clearance if she were to be in the room when anything related to national security was discussed. Apparently she did not, and was not. Pillow talk with Bill is not the same thing as being in the situation room.

So all you could really say then is that on matters of security, Hillary's experience is not as strong. Its easy to forget because of the current administration, but there are so many more aspects of being a president that have absolutely nothing to do with security. Luckily, she's not campaigning to be Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor.

It's still a red herring and a kind of implict smear; if she didn't get a security clearance, why, it must be because of her commie background. Or something. This is what the whole point of this 'revelation' is.

In fact it means virtually nothing. It doesn't make her experience in the White House less important or fullfilling or whatever else is being claimed. So she doesn't know the nuclear codes; well, so the hell what?

She's simply being held to a made up, on the fly standard that no one else is ever held up to. Everyone who could POSSIBLY have gotten a security clearance, and didn't, is now suspect and all their experience is discounted as not so important. Except that standard only applies to Hillary and to no one else.

Except that standard only applies to Hillary and to no one else.

She's the only one claiming it...

That standard only applies to Hillary because she's the one running on the basis of her White House experience. And she and her husband are making us really work to try to figure out what that experience was, since they won't unseal the records.

She's the only one claiming it because Eleanor Roosevelt and Edith Wilson are dead, and Rosalynn Carter isn't running. I love the irony that, when Clinton ran and was in office, there were people upset over her policy role and NOW that she's running for President many of the same people want to pretend that it was unimportant or didn't exist.