Roy B Confidant Gregg Hartley Pitches Image Rehab for Foreign Dictators

The most recent print issue of Harper's magazine has a fascinating article titled "Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s lobbyists for hire," for which author Ken Silverstein went incognito, posing as a consultant to the authoritarian ruling regime of Turkmenistan to see how Washington lobby shops would approach the prospective representation of such a dictator.

Needless to say, the piece does nothing to enhance the already tarnished image of the national capital's lobbyist corps.  

But it does give us a taste of the operational style of GOP Congressman Roy Blunt's close friend and advisor Gregg Hartley. ­The story, of which unfortunately only an excerpt is online, includes this remarkable anecdote:

The sixth member of the Cassidy team, and its clear leader, was firm vice chairman Gregg Hartley, who with his crew cut and serious manner initially reminded me of a drill sergeant; but soon he loosened up and proved to possess a certain folksy appeal. Until 2003 he had been a top aide to then House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, and he maintains close ties to top Republicans in Congress. ...

Hartley pointed out that Cassidy’s work for Equatorial Guinea was “a very similar sort of representation to what you’re talking about” with Turkmenistan. The Obiang regime had received a bit of bad publicity—he mentioned here a banking scandal involving the government—and Cassidy’s first job had been “to identify inaccurate or biased stories and try to correct them.” Hartley also boasted about Cassidy’s political contacts, saying, “We strongly believe in a bipartisan [approach] and mirroring the power structure. . . . You have to find champions on both sides.” ...

“We know you’re talking to other firms,” Hartley said pointedly. “You’re going to have a hard time matching . . . [the] types of successes” his firm had racked up. For example, thanks to Cassidy’s aggressive media strategy and trips it had organized to Equatorial Guinea for congressional staffers, things were now looking up for the government there. The proof: three years ago, Hartley said, Parade Magazine had ranked Obiang as “the world’s sixth worst dictator,” grimacing as he stated that last word. “He’s still not a great guy,” he went on, “but he’s not in the top ten anymore, and we can take some credit for helping them figure out how to work down that list. Is he going to win the U.N. humanitarian award next year? No, he’s not, but we’re making progress.”

Later in the story --which is well worth shelling out six bucks for a newsstand copy of the mag-- Hartley suggests that he could lobby on behalf of the Turkmenistan regime for three years for as little as $1.2 million per annum.  I guess that's a small price to pay for a human rights violator who wants to move down from number 6 to number 11 on the "Worst Dictators" list.

But who'll help rehabilitate Hartley's reputation?