Washington ? Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats’ criticism of the Bush administration Friday, telling a House committee that White House and State Department officials “carelessly and recklessly” blew her CIA cover in a politically motivated smear of her husband.

Plame, the operative at the center of the leak scandal that resulted in last week’s criminal conviction of a former top White House official, created more of a stir by her presence on Capitol Hill than by her testimony.

She revealed little new information about the case, which sparked a federal investigation and brought perjury and obstruction of justice convictions of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. No one has been charged with leaking her identity.

Still, Plame’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was a moment of political theater that dramatized Democrats’ drive to use their control of Congress to expose what they see as White House efforts to intimidate dissenters.

Under questioning, Plame recounted feeling “like I had been hit in the gut” on the July 2003 morning when she saw a newspaper story by syndicated columnist Robert Novak identifying her.