He woke up to find some off-the-cuff observations he made to a colleague at an inquiry into benighted cable firm NTL in the US all over the papers, suggesting he had misled the regulators about the company.
This is now part of a class action in the States against the company's former directors.
Carter, until recently CEO of City PR firm Brunswick, has been appointed as PM Gordon Brown's "chief strategy adviser and head of communications", spin doctor as far as most of the papers are concerned.
In fact, Carter was never much of a spinner or schmoozer, not at Brunswick nor Ofcom nor, indeed, JWT. If he had been, he wouldn't have made those daft remarks to his NTL colleague in the US (assuming he did).
But if the papers decide you're the new upgrade of Alastair Campbell, then you've just got to live with it.
In fact, he made a big error by agreeing to be called "head of communications". If he'd left it at "chief strategy adviser", he'd have been much better off.
His real role is, presumably, as No 10 "gatekeeper", the job Anji Hunter used to do for Tony Blair before she went off to BP, someone who can (like Hunter tried to do from time to time) tell the PM not to be so daft.
When the PM wants to be really daft (like Blair with Iraq) there's nothing the so-called gatekeeper can do, of course, but that doesn't stop otherwise intelligent people taking on the role.
But head of communications is truly a poisoned chalice: a) because Carter isn't much good at it; and, b) because he has the job journalists and others will pay even less attention to -- government press officers who might know what they're doing.
Carter will find himself trying to get a word in edgeways amid the two Eds, Balls and Miliband, political spinner Damian McBride and whoever else has caught Gordon Brown's attention that week.
If he's lucky, he might have the odd lunch with a national newspaper editor or political editor. Even so, he'd be wise not to say anything. When Bank of England governor Mervyn King had lunch recently with Irwin Stelzer, Rupert Murdoch's economic adviser and Sunday Times Business News columnist, he found himself as the lead news story in the main paper (Merv had allegedly averred that the government was in a bit of a tizz over Northern Rock and what not).
It's pretty evident that Carter, who's really a 21st century bureaucrat and we need them after all, wasn't enjoying himself much at Brunswick, an opinion that may have been reciprocated by the firm's owner Alan Parker.
But trying to bring some sensible management techniques into a fin de siecle government that's terrified of losing power after more than 10 years in charge is a truly impossible brief. Especially when you've been saddled with a handle that doesn't describe your job at all accurately. Before you've started.
But that's politics for you.
Politics of the media is a regular series of opinion pieces for Brand Republic about the way media shapes politics and vice-versa. Stephen Foster is a partner at The Editorial Partnership and can be contacted at:steve-edco@blueyonder.co.uk.