That is how it should be: When you leave, you lose your clearance, not as a penalty but because you don’t need it for official duties. (Being a better-credentialed and thus better-compensated cable-TV pundit is not an official duty.) If the government needs to consult you because of some unique experience you had as a national-security official, it should take very little time to reestablish the clearance. If complications arise that make it impossible to renew the clearance quickly, that may be a sign that it should not be renewed, and that the government should consult someone else.

Several weeks back, when it was first suggested that the president might start pulling the clearances of his political critics, I suggested in some interviews that paring back clearances government-wide was a good idea. I thought the president should convene an advisory panel of current and former national-security officials held in esteem on both sides of the aisle (there are many such people). They could then recommend standards for withdrawing clearances, from both former officials and others (such as non-government contractors), if the government does not need them to have access to classified information. Presumably, Brennan and many others would have fallen into the “no need to know” category. Their clearances could then have been pulled, along with many other former officials. The process would be a necessary housecleaning, not a partisan spat.

I wish the president did not so thrive on political vendettas.