In a pair of tweets Saturday night, Sarah Palin paid tribute to the man she would have served as vice president, calling Sen. John McCain “an American original” as well as “a maverick and a fighter” and sending her “prayers” to his family. However, in a new interview with The Daily Mail, Palin shared some seriously backhanded compliments about the senator, who lost his battle with brain cancer this weekend. “I think it's unfortunate that he had people around him—and they continued to be around him for a very long time—who weren't serving him well,” Palin said of McCain. “I think that's unfortunate because he had some strange people around him and... disloyal people, and you know, I don't say that as like hate speech or griping about it, it's just a fact they were just some not nice people.” While Palin said she believes McCain will be remembered for his military service, she added that “part of that legacy unfortunately will be some of these people that had influence on him” and “still try to undermine us.” In his final book, The Restless Wave, McCain wrote that he regretted picking Palin as his 2008 running mate over his friend, the former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman.
