Mark Sanford's Affair Might Have Jeopardized Top-Secret Clearance

By GottaLaff

Illustration by Ed Wexler for USN&WR

The Rushpublics are willing to give this guy a pass, but they jumped all over Bill Clinton for his under-the-desk, er, undertakings:

[He also jeopardizes] his Department of Homeland Security clearance and raises new questions about his candor on the steamy affair. [...] Well, as a chief of state and head of the South Carolina National Guard, Sanford has a top-secret security status that lets him in on classified information such as possible terrorist threats and emergency tips. But with that need to know come intelligence community rules of conduct, a key one being that relationships with foreigners must be revealed. The reason: Those in the know can leave themselves open to blackmail from rival intelligence services about a compromising dalliance.

Now isn't that similar to what we heard about Clinton's not-so-youthful indiscretions? That our national security was at stake...?

Bill Clinton did not care that he had exposed the presidency to blackmail by a foreign power by engaging in at least seventeen phone sex calls with Monica Lewinsky on her unsecured line.

Kate O'Beirne in 1998:

After a sexual encounter in March 1997, the President told Monica he suspected that an unnamed foreign embassy was tapping his phones. [...] National security is threatened, and the President proposed a plan that wouldn't fool a nearsighted, hearing-impaired frat mother?

Back to Argentina Marky:

"Agency policy requires our officers to document their relationships with foreign nationals," a CIA official tells Whispers. [...] Bart Bechtel, a former CIA clandestine officer, adds, "CIA officers are required to report such relationships. Failure to do so can easily be grounds for termination and loss of clearances. In some cases, even when reported, an officer may lose clearances and be terminated." [...] Homeland Security canceled former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's after he was arrested on corruption charges.

Who knows? Had Sanford revealed a penchant for cigars, the threat level might have shot up to orange.