In this file photo, former CIA operative Valerie Plame is interviewed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (Richard Drew/AP)
Outed CIA agent Valerie Plame drives backwards in a Chevrolet Camaro and strides through dusty back roads in a Hollywood-style video touting her campaign for an open New Mexico congressional seat.
Wearing jeans and sunglasses, a windblown Plame says she’s the best choice to represent the heavily Democratic and predominantly Hispanic Third District in the rural southwest.
"My dad was in the Air Force (and) my brother almost died in Vietnam. My service was cut short when my own government betrayed me,” she narrates in the video entitled “Undercover,” as the sports car drives backwards in a gauzy cloud of dust.
She says the controversy over her ouster from the CIA isn’t the reason why she wants to return to Washington as a lawmaker.
"We’re going backwards on national security, health care and women’s rights,” she intones.
“We need to turn our country around,” she says, pulling a dramatic U-turn in the Camaro.
The video drew more than 600,000 views on YouTube in its first 24 hours.
The photogenic Plame is running on the Democratic ticket to replace Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who is running for U.S. Senate.
Lujan, a 10-year veteran Democratic lawmaker who regularly won reelection by close to 2-1 margins.
Plame was thrust into the headlines during the Iraq War when officials in the George W. Bush administration leaked her status as an undercover CIA operative to discredit her husband Joe Wilson, a former ambassador and prominent critic of the rush to war.
Fact checkers criticized the video for its claim that Bush aide Scooter Libby was the one who outed her as a CIA operative. Libby, who was pardoned by President Trump, was actually imprisoned for his role in a conspiracy to cover up the revelation.