Valerie Plame Back in the Spotlight with "Fair Game"
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Valerie Plame, the former C.I.A. operative whose exposure in 2003 overwhelmed the Bush Administration in scandal, is making her move back in the spotlight as the subject of the upcoming thriller flick, "Fair Game."
The film, due in theaters Friday, is based on her 2007 autobiography of the same name and stars Naomi Watts as Plame and Sean Penn as her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson.
Plame, who lived majority of her adult life in secrecy, says she found it difficult to be known as a public person.
"I was in a world where discretion was good," she said to the Associated Press. "All of a sudden that changed overnight. That was not easy."
If she had it her way, Plame says she would still work as an undercover operative. "I loved my job. If none of this had happened, I'd still be overseas working, happily, right now. But that wasn't the card I was dealt."
"This," of course, is the now well-known story of how Plame's CIA cover was blown, leaked by Bush administration officials in retribution, she and her husband claim, for her husband's public accusation that the administration was twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi nuclear threat and justify going to war.
An investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter"Libby, then Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Bush later commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence.
But scandal aside, Plame, who now lives in Santa Fe, N.M., with Wilson and their 10-year-old twin boys, allows that being portrayed onscreen by one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood isn't all bad.
"It could be worse," she jokes.
