MSNBC's Joe Scarborough proves once again he's incapable of criticizing a Republican without the words "both sides!" coming out of his mouth. As I'm sure everyone is more than well aware of by now, the Republicans running for president have finally turned on Donald Trump after he went off on Sen. John McCain at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa over the weekend.

Trump defender Joe Scarborough also said that Trump should apologize for his remarks about McCain's military record this Monday on Morning Joe, but of course he couldn't do it without finding a Democrat that he wanted to pretend said something equally as reprehensible as Trump. This started on Twitter over the weekend.

Norm Ornstein's response to him, which I assume he either didn't read or ignored, was perfect.

Franken first made the remarks back in 2000, well before he was running for office, and as he explained to Politico, it was a joke.

Fifteen years ago, Al Franken took a dig at John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War.

“I have tremendous respect for McCain but I don’t buy the war hero thing,” Franken wrote in an essay about the 2000 elections. “Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned he sat out the war.”

But those comments are getting fresh attention after Donald Trump caused an uproar this weekend for making similar comments about McCain’s war record.

On Monday, Franken’s office contended that the comedian-turned-Minnesota senator was just kidding around. He didn’t become a senator until winning a closely contested race in 2008.

“It was a joke,” said Franken spokesman Michael Dale-Stein, “one that Sen. Franken told Sen. McCain when he was a guest on Sen. Franken’s radio show in 2004, during which he also called Sen. McCain a hero with tremendous political courage.”

Franken praised McCain on the April 19, 2004, episode of the radio show he used to host on the progressive Air America station, according to the Democrat’s office.

I don't expect Franken's office's response to put an end to the false equivalency game from Scarborough and his ilk any time soon. He's paid to gloss over Republicans' bad behavior. Good luck continuing to try to polish that giant turd named Donald Trump.

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