The good news is that White House that leaks classified information like a sieve is anxious to limit clearance for handling classified materials. The bad news is, the Bush gang is limiting their concerns to gay people.
The Bush administration last year rewrote the rules for allowing gay men and lesbians to receive national-security clearances, drawing complaints from civil rights activists.
The Bush administration said security clearances cannot be denied “solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual.” But it removed language saying sexual orientation “may not be used as a basis for or a disqualifying factor in determining a person’s eligibility for a security clearance.”
In 1997, Clinton changed the rules so that sexual orientation “may not be used as a basis for or a disqualifying factor in determining a person’s eligibility for a security clearance.” In December, Bush undid the change. The result, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said, is that gay federal employees “may face some additional roadblocks to obtaining their security clearances.”
In the meantime, Karl Rove still has his security clearance, despite his role in the Valerie Plame scandal, his signature on a nondisclosure agreement called Standard Form 312, and federal regulations that required administrative sanctions that never happened.
I don’t think I’ll ever really understand the Bush gang’s priorities.