According to Gen. Shelton, the incident took place sometime “around 2000,” though a previous book by Lt. Col. Patterson claimed that President Clinton had lost the codes in the midst of the 1998 Monica Lewinski scandal.

But Shelton’s account is far more detailed and even includes an allegation of something of a second-rate coverup by Clinton-era aides. According to Shelton officials tried to swap out the codes for a new version as part of a routine updating only to be told twice that the president had them and “could not be disturbed,” it was only later than one of the aides conceded they’d lost them.

The codes, also known as the Gold Codes, are printed on a plastic card and are used by the president for identification purposes when he calls in a nuclear attack. Though it seems the risk of someone else successfully calling in a phony nuclear strike with the codes is comparatively minor, Gen. Shelton termed its loss “a big deal, a gargantuan deal.”

“Our foreign policy has gotten way out of balance, it’s going to be up to us to try to get back into more equilibrium, which will be good for our government and for the image of our country around the world,” pledged the former First Lady.

But though she spoke of her “forward thinking” new policies, the specifics revealed little material difference from the current administration and a lot of empty rhetoric. She ruled out negotiations with Hamas, something the Obama Administration was reportedly mulling. She promised more focus on Darfur, she declared her and the President-elect’s sympathies for the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

Then there was Iran, where she promised a “new, different approach” only to accuse Iran of trying to acquire nuclear weapons, promising to try sanctions to stop them, and then declaring “no option is off the table.” If Sen. Clinton speaks for the new administration, as one would assume the incoming Secretary of State does, one cannot fail to notice that their “new” approach looks remarkably similar to the approach that the president-elect chastised the outgoing Bush Administration for.