“Republicans clearly see her as the biggest threat to a Republican victory in 2016. They’re going to throw everything at her. And they’ve already started with Karl Rove’s vicious and vile attacks about her mental well-being.”
Last week, after a fund-raising event in Santa Fe, N.M. for the Super PAC Ready for Hillary, former CIA agent Valerie Plame, also known as Valerie Plame Wilson, spoke of her support for Hillary Clinton and what she could bring to the presidential table.
Since 2003 when Plame was “outed” from the CIA after journalist Robert Novak revealed her identify as a CIA operative, Plame has lived in New Mexico with her husband and children and has written a best-selling memoir, Fair Game, which, in combination with her husband’s book, was adapted into a major Hollywood film starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.
Now, along with writing a new spy thriller novel, the 50-year old is setting her sights on supporting Clinton’s possible presidential run.
When asked if Clinton is aware of Plame’s support in Ready for Hillary, Plame said, “I imagine she does. I dare say Hillary Clinton has many, many friends. But she has to know that we’re engaged. She was very kind to us when Joe and I went through the darkest days of the leak of my name in 2003. And of course Joe worked in the Clinton White House.”
However, Plame says that she doesn’t have any inside information as to whether Clinton will run for president or not. “I really think that she is still weighing the pros and the cons. Like anyone else she’s human and probably wakes up one day convinced and then the next day not so sure,” Plame said, but added that it’s pretty obvious that Hillary is waiting to make any sort of announcement until after midterms.
Plame did go on to speak about a few of Clinton’s platforms, such as Zero to Five education and pre-K, adding that Jeb Bush has also been a strong voice in this initiative, and Clinton’s call to action for women at the 1996 Beijing women’s conference.
“I’m at the Santa Fe Institute right now,” Plame said. “There are lots of nuclear scientists here, and I can tell you it doesn’t take one to figure out that women empowerment in terms of education and opportunity around the world make the world a better place.”
When asked by ABC whom she would compare Hillary to, Plame said that “FDR comes to mind.”
“She gets down into the nuts and bolts and figures out ‘what’s the policy, what’s the substance?'” adding that “even those that hate Hillary admit she is a work horse and not a show horse.”
But if Hillary doesn’t run? Who would Plame support then?
“I think someone like Elizabeth Warren,” she said. “She’s awfully articulate and very attractive. And there is a strong populist feel through the nation right now. And she taps into that.”
Plame’s first spy novel, Blowback, written with mystery writer Sarah Lovett, was released in October 2013.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
