While many found then-candidate Donald Trump’s “I like people who weren’t captured” shot at Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in July of 2015 indefensible, to those of us of a certain age, Trump was simply engaging in the age-old art of breaking balls.

It’s a working class thing, a guy thing, something men do to get under each other’s skin. And Trump works in the art of ball breaking like Sinatra did song.

To the uninitiated, ball breaking sounds shockingly cruel. Oddly enough, though, it is nothing personal. The only goal is to needle around for a weak spot until the other guy loses his composure. It’s a competition, a sport. What’s more, Trump didn’t start it, and in the end, McCain would lose when he voted against the repeal of Obamacare.

There are many ways to lose a ball breaking contest. One is to allow the other guy to burrow so far under your skin, you take things too far. When McCain voted against repealing Obamacare, McCain violated something he held most dear… He broke his word. He lost his composure.

Regardless, most of the outrage against Trump over the “captured” shot is purely political, especially in the establishment media. Democrats say much worse things about Republicans every day, and you don’t see Jake Tapper sputtering about decency grasping his pearls for three years. Tapper couldn’t even get his sanctimony on as his own audience booed a rape victim.

In other words, the media are not at all sincere in their outrage over Trump’s shot at McCain. What the media are actually outraged over is that they could not bully Trump into an apology. Trump refusing to apologize to their mob is what the media find unforgivable. The only thing the media find unforgivable is defiance.

We know this for the reasons stated above, and we know this because just a few years earlier, during the 2008 presidential election, this very same media that pretends to cherish McCain as all things wise and wonderful now, most especially in the wake of his death over the weekend, were the same media who savaged his character, his integrity, and his patriotism — and, yes, his military service — in ways that make Trump’s ball break look like a love tap.

As is always the case with our corrupt media, the hypocrisy is audacious and partisan politics purely mercenary. Gushing over McCain (not that he does not deserve legitimate praise for his valiant military service) is nothing less than an easy opportunity for the media to launch yet another Two-Minute Hate against Trump.

Let me state this as plainly as I can…

When John McCain could be used by the media to achieve their left-wing goals (save Obamacare, a club against Trump), they adore the guy. He’s the “maverick” again, a national hero, a true patriot… But when John McCain stood in the way of the media’s left-wing goals, most especially the goal of anointing the radical left-wing Obama president, McCain was an old, dying, rich, white, adulterous, corrupt, racist warmonger too unstable to be president.

And for the following the media have never apologized…

The New York Times ran a Birther campaign to disqualify McCain, a campaign very similar to the one Hillary Clinton was running against Obama at the time.

McCain the “warmonger.”

McCain the racist.

McCain the racist again.

And again.

McCain the politically corrupt adulterer.

Here is the media’s favorite general, Wesley Clark, mocking McCain for getting shot down, and no one in the media ever demanded an apology.

“That large squadron in the Navy [McCain] commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron,” Clark said, adding, “I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

Obama adviser Rand Beers mocked McCain’s POW status, saying “that because McCain was in an unfortunate state of ‘isolation’ during much of the Vietnam War, his national security experience is ‘sadly limited.'”

McCain is too old, too old, too old, too old and wrinkly…

McCain is too erratic, too angry,

McCain is a liar, an adulterous liar, a dishonorable man.

The far-left Washington Post accused McCain of being a liar who lies about his own war record.

PolitiFact described McCain a POW who “bargained” with the enemy.

I could go on and on and on…

The establishment media’s 2008 jihad to personally destroy John McCain, a legitimate war hero, to annihilate his character, his war record, his sanity, was equal parts appalling and relentless.

And anyone who is still upset over Trump’s remark and makes no mention of the media’s indefensible behavior has no credibility.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.