Feel the fear as the political elites scramble for cover. The poor dears, having to find ways to defend behaviour by their well-paying clients:
Much has been written about the State Department’s intensive effort to deal with the release of secret diplomatic cables by the website WikiLeaks, but there is also a separate, massive effort to deal with the crisis by the embassies of foreign governments, aided by the paid lobbyists and consultants who represent them.
Working as a Washington lobbyist for a foreign country is usually a pretty sweet gig. These hired guns keep governments informed on anything in town that could affect their country’s diplomatic or political interests — for a hefty monthly fee, of course. Lobbyists apply added elbow grease when relevant legislation needs cheerleading on Capitol Hill. Consultants work harder when foreign officials are in town or there’s a pressing bilateral issue. But overall, crises are relatively rare.
Not this week, though: It’s all hands on deck on K Street, as firms are fielding frantic and constant requests from diplomats in foreign capitals, trying to make sense of the released and soon-to-be-released WikiLeaks State Department cables.
“When was the last time that every embassy and every consultancy in town went into crisis mode simultaneously,” one consultant with clients in Europe and Asia told The Cable. This consultant said that his firm has been totally swamped since Sunday’s initial document dump with panicked emails, rushed conference calls, and requests for information.
“Basically you have governments that have absolutely no idea what’s in these documents. And everybody from senior officials to embassy personnel to Washington consultants are in a mad scramble to go through each new batch of documents as they come out to identify items that are potential vulnerabilities, paint their bosses in an unflattering light, or reveal some sensitive information,” the consultant said. “The entire chain of command is in panic mode with every new release.”
…
“The spectrum goes from panicked to intrigued, optimistic to ape shit.”