Embattled California Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., shrugged off woes over a wiretapping controversy Wednesday and claimed "Best Team Name Honors" for this year's Capital Challenge mini-marathon race.
"Tapped Out," an obvious reference to revelations that Harman was overheard by government wiretappers in conversations with a suspected Israeli intelligence agent in 2005, evidently won the judges' hearts as best team moniker.
Sponsored by the American Council of Life Insurers, the three-mile jog draws a large congressional turnout. It begins and ends in southeast Washington's Anacostia Park
The eight term-Democrat took the occasion to throw a road-race challenge to SpyTalk, which has taken the lead in exposing the wiretapped conversations and allegations that Bush administration officials effectively blocked FBI agents from questioning her about promises she was said to have made to the target of a FBI foreign counterintelligence operation.
Embattled Harman Challenges Columnist to Road Race
"I am challenging CQ's Jeff Stein, who got my age wrong and denigrated my previous race time in a recent blog post, to a road race," Harman said in a press release. "Bring it on, Jeff!"
Added Harman: "Clearly, our sense of humor is intact."
In yesterday's blog SpyTalk prematurely tabbed Harman's age as 64. She hits the penultimate pre-Medicare mark in June.
SpyTalk has already beaten her in that race. But the congresswoman's last-minute challenge came too late Thursday for SpyTalk to lace up its sneakers and break scheduled appointments with anonymous intelligence sources.
Instead, SpyTalk issued a counterchallenge: To race Harman from her Capitol Hill office to the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on May 3 at the Washington Convention Center, where Harman is giving an address.
Meanwhile, it could not be learned if Harman's widely circulated public challenge was related to her hiring of Lanny Davis, a celebrated public relations consultant to Democrats in hot water, as was reported last night by The Cable's Laura Rozen.
UPDATE: "My day job, road races and family leave me too little time to feed the insatiable beast (the press)," Harman said in a statement late Wednesday. "Lanny is an old and trusted friend who has expertise in getting the facts out."
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Instead of challenges and counter-challenges, why not ask for an interview and see if you can clarify some of the outstanding questions?
TPMDC seems to be following the story as well~
Posted by: Dee Illuminati
| April 30, 2009 10:04 AM
Obviously, you're confused. You list Rep. Jane Harman as a representative from California.
She doesn't represent California. She represents Israel.
Please correct.
Posted by: Hinkus
| May 1, 2009 2:20 PM
Dee,
Just to be perfectly clear, I repeatedly asked Rep. Harman for an interview, but she declined. -js
Posted by: Jeff Stein
| May 1, 2009 3:51 PM
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