Sarah Palin Brawl Highlights ‘Unfair, Unacceptable’ Media Treatment, Says John McCain


The Sarah Palin brawl, when initially reported by most media outlets, was done so with a bit of “a humorous tone” and whimsy, said Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

“The more we learned about what happened its clearer that it’s not that funny,” Brzezinski said. “We played into stereotypes from maybe our own outlook, quite frankly. So it’s definitely more of a story than that.”

“There is the very real possibility that something terrible happened to them,” Scarborough said, adding that “I think we all shot first and asked questions later and a lot of people are guilty of that.”

Indeed, CNN’s Carol Costello took a hard humorous tone with the fight in which a man attacked Bristol Palin while her 5-year-old son was waiting for her in the car.

Costello thought Bristol’s expletive-laced statement to police was “the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across.”

She later apologized in comments reported by Politico.

“Over the past few days I have been roundly criticized for joking about a brawl involving the Palin family. In retrospect, I deserve such criticism and would like to apologize.”

In a recent interview reported by Mediaite, John McCain, the Arizona GOP Senator and former presidential candidate who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, found the media coverage of the Palin family brawl to be unacceptable.

“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 also voiced his support for a return by Palin to the political spectrum.

“She didn’t ask my advice, but I had hoped that she wouldn’t have stepped down when she did as governor of Alaska,” he added.

For Sarah Palin’s part, she has thought seriously about a political return as a statement “to all my haters.”

She also attacked the media’s coverage of the Palin family brawl.

“What happened on the night in question wasn’t funny. It was humiliating and frightening… The broken ribs, black eyes, and messed up elbows and knees suffered by people in our party that night were no laughing matter. Neither were Bristol’s bruises on her arms and leg from being dragged by a man. My kids aren’t proud of what happened, nor are they seeking sympathy by playing the victim card — that’s why they haven’t commented on this for all these weeks.”

Do you think the media has been hypocritical in its coverage of the Sarah Palin family brawl? Sound off in our comments section.

[Image via Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com]

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