Last week we brought you this story about McCain campaign Co-Chair Phil Gramm and his lobbying efforts that put him on the wrong side of the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis. Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities -- while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.
In the #3 story on Monday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talks with The Nation's Chris Hayes about the stench of lobbyists that continuously plagues John McCain's campaign and how this and other devastating scandals completely blows his anti-lobbyist, tough-on-terror campaign theme:
Hayes: "...What this reveals is actually a really profound contradiction at the heart of the Republican coalition, the conservative coalition and McCain's campaign, which is on the one hand, it's home to the most sort of, chest-beating, self righteous moralists about foreign policy - we can't talk to Ahmedenajad because he's an anti-Semite, at the same time it's a party who's agenda is run by global conglomerates that pursue dollar and profit with no regard for any kind of sense of morality..."