Donald Trump Swift Boats John McCain (Updated)

I'm trying to figure out if this is The Greatest Thing Ever or merely in the Top 5 of greatest things ever:

Billionaire eccentric Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that he did not owe Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an apology after stating that the senator is only viewed as a war hero because he was held captive and that Trump likes “people who weren’t captured.”

“No. Not at all,” Trump responded to ABC’s Martha Raddatz when asked if he owed McCain, who was held for five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, an apology.

Later in the interview, Trump demanded an apology from McCain for the senator stating that the billionaire candidate was firing up the “crazies” with his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

I love it. God help me, I do love it so.

UPDATE:  Steve Benen has some suggestions for Republicans in the wake of the vicious GOP response to Trump's attack on John McCain:

[I]f Republican leaders want to argue that attacks on Americans’ military service are simply beyond the pale, perhaps party officials can take this opportunity to apologize to John Kerry, who was smeared by Swiftboat lies in the 2004 cycle – lies that were celebrated at the time by 2016 candidates like Jeb Bush and Rick Perry – and who saw the spectacle at the Republican National Convention of party activists mocking Purple Hearts. While they’re it, Republicans can express some regret for related smears directed at former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.).

And let’s also recall the time Rush Limbaugh said that any U.S. serviceman or woman who supported ending the war in Iraq is a “phony soldier” – a smear that did literally nothing to undermine Limbaugh’s standing as one of the most powerful voices in Republican politics.

If the rule is that Democratic veterans should expect to have their service and their patriotism questioned, while Republican veterans must be celebrated without question, GOP leaders should come right out and say so. If the RNC is right, and there is “no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably,” can Republicans explain why this principle took root just 48 hours ago?

Trump does appear to be some type of operative for the Democratic Party -- he has a way of exposing GOP dirty laundry (entrenched racism, Swift Boating) and doing so in hilariously entertaining fashion.

UPDATE II:  Ed Kilgore adds this:

The one thing we won’t hear is any Republican apology to Kerry. After all, he just played a central role in the greatest diplomatic betrayal since Munich—no, since Eve-and-Satan!-unleashing the most terrifying military superpower in the history of the world, Iran! Yes, in their account, John Kerry has been stabbing his country in the back for more than four decades, and just can’t stop. You know, like Republican smear-masters.

Amen.