Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) came to the defense of his former running mate, Sarah Palin, on Friday, more than a month after she and her family were involved in a drunken, bloody altercation at a house party in Alaska.
During an interview with Phoenix television station KTVK, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said he wasn’t excusing the brawl but went on to blast the media’s coverage of it.
“I think these family affairs are — I don’t know much of the details about it,” McCain told the TV station. “Things happen in people’s families and I’m not excusing it, I’m not condemning it.”
The brawl occurred in September at a house party in Anchorage that was attended by Palin and several members of her family. Witnesses and a police report on the incident said Palin’s husband and some of their adult children ended up physically fighting with other party guests. The former vice presidential nominee, meanwhile, was seen yelling profanities during the melee, according to at least one account.
Palin has since called the incident “humiliating,” although she and her daughter have criticized the news coverage of it.
McCain echoed that criticism on Friday.
“I just know that the kind of coverage that this got, in my view, is in keeping with the kind of coverage the liberals have accorded to Sarah Palin for a number of years, which in my view, is biased and unfair and sometimes unacceptable,” McCain told KTVK.
Watch video below, courtesy of KTVK:
