This contretemps between Joe Scarborough and Joe Conason is a day old, but still amusing to watch. Scarborough has spent the last few weeks ripping Hillary Clinton over the Clinton Foundation, and Salon’s Joe Conason accused Scarborough of hypocrisy, as Scarborough has participated in Clinton Global Initiative events in the past. Oddly, Conason prefaced his attack with a Winston Churchill quote about “the Hun,” and quicker than one can say Godwin’s Law the segment got utterly derailed (via TPM and Newsbusters):

JOE SCARBOROUGH:  Come on, come on. Stop this game.

JOE CONASON: It was very interesting when you gave the — first of all, Joe, I have to say.

SCARBOROUGH: Stop this game.

CHURCHILL: I have the Churchill quote for you, which is —

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, great, I love Churchill.

CONASON: What he said about the Hun, is that they’re either at your feet or at your throat.

SCARBOROUGH: So you’re comparing me to Nazis now. Great.

CONASON: No, no.  No, no.

SCARBOROUGH: You just compared, you just used the word — you compared me to a Nazi because you don’t like the facts that you have nothing on this.

CONASON: You’re nothing like a Nazi, Joe.

SCARBOROUGH: You just compared me to one.

CONASON: No, no, no. It’s just that there are times when you’ve been, you know, friendly to the Clintons.

SCARBOROUGH: Right.

CONASON: Like when I believe you broadcast from CGI at least one time.

SCARBOROUGH: A couple times.

CONASON: A couple times!

SCARBOROUGH: Oh no!  Does that make me a Nazi, Joe?

CONASON: No, no, Churchhill was saying sometimes you like them, sometimes you don’t like them when it’s convenient for you.

. . .

SCARBOROUGH: No, no, Let me finish.  You compared me to a Nazi. You compared me to a Nazi.

CONASON: No, I didn’t.

SCARBOROUGH: Yes, you did. You brought up a Churchill quote when he was talking about the Nazis.

CONASON: He wasn’t talking about the Nazis. He wasn’t talking about the Nazis.  This was after World War I.

SCARBOROUGH: The Huns. Whatever.

CONASON: They were not Nazis. They were Huns.

Actually, the quote comes from a speech Churchill gave to the US Congress on May 19, 1943. Clearly, the context for Churchill at the time was the Nazis, and not Germans in general. (Evan McMurry’s research gets the same result.) In its use, though, Churchill appears to be paraphrasing an earlier quote. If I recall, one of the wits of ancient Rome said something similar about the tribes of Germania, although it’s far enough back in my memory to only recall it in the most general of terms.

Scarborough overreacted here at least a little bit, as it’s pretty clear that Conason wasn’t making a comparison to Nazis here, but … come on. What was Conason doing with this quote in the first place? It’s not just provocative for precisely the reason Scarborough notes, it’s not even on point in the first place. It has nothing to do with liking someone for one thing and criticizing them for another; it has to do with the danger of trusting people who have proven themselves untrustworthy. If Conason wanted to discuss hypocrisy by the use of this quote, it’d be like flying from Chicago to Minneapolis by way of Amsterdam, Moscow, Johannesburg, and Buenos Aires.

On the other hand, it’s pretty good advice for anyone thinking that putting the Clintons back in the White House is a good idea. Thanks, Joe C.