“Could Barack Hussein Obama could a security clearance?”
If he was an ordinary citizen, the answer should be no, simply because he lies. I held security clearances for many years while working for different companies. Critical to a clearance is honesty. While I have never used illegal drugs of any kind, my understanding was that when the question was asked, in writing or in person, just answer truthfully, no matter how embarrassing. They really didn’t care if someone had a misspent youth (current use would be an issue) - but if someone lied (whether it was about drugs or anything), that was the end of their clearance.
You’re right about the “misspent youth” aspect of clearance. I went to college in the early 70s with all that entailed. I had to take a polygraph and got all the expected questions, several of which were answered in the affirmative. But I passed because I didn’t hide anything from them. The interesting part was that, on the sexual encounter side of things, I left there thinking that I could have had relations with anyone I wanted as long as they were American women. No men, no foreigners. My wife would have had a problem with it, but apparently the government and my security officer would have been OK with it. That cracked me up at the time.
You are correct. I spent almost 5 years as a GS-11 doing security background investigations for DIS and any lies on the security questionnaire or found during the background investigation would, at the minimum, result in months of delays in the completion of the case. One guy I investigated was up for a TS at a warehouse that handled materials for a secret aircraft manufacturer and lied about his wife’s background, (she was a Vietnamese refugee), and about his receiving welfare money for her under her maiden name. He never got the clearance because of this.