Sportscaster and CNN contributor Bob Costas made headlines recently by calling former President Donald Trump “by far the most disgraceful figure in modern presidential history” and referring to Trump supporters as being “in the throes of some sort of toxic delusion in a toxic cult.” Which raises the question: What is Bob Costas’ definition of “disgraceful”?

Is it disgraceful for a president of the United States to carry on an extramarital affair with a woman who also shared a bed with a leading mafia figure and who served as a courier between Kennedy and the mob? Is it disgraceful for a president of the United States to seduce a 19-year-old intern in the White House and to persuade that intern to provide sexual favors to the president’s brother and a presidential assistant? Is it disgraceful for a president of the United States to secretly receive injections of amphetamines and other mind-altering drugs from a physician known to White House aides as “Dr. Feelgood”? Is it disgraceful for a president of the United States to solicit, or have his aids solicit, prostitutes for sex? Is it disgraceful for a president of the United States to request the services of a prostitute who looked like his wife? Is it disgraceful for a presidential candidate to have his slate of electors vote in a state’s contested presidential election when his opponent was declared the certified winner of that state’s electoral vote? The president who did all of these “disgraceful” things was John F. Kennedy. Would Bob Costas call those who still regard Kennedy with awe and admiration a “toxic cult”? Presumably, this would include the presidential “experts” who rank Kennedy as one of our greatest presidents. (RELATED from Francis P. Sempa: Ranking Presidents, Miseducating Our Children)

Let us look at some other presidents and their “disgraceful” acts or omissions. Woodrow Wilson mandated that the federal workforce be segregated by race. As Vox’s Dylan Matthews wrote in 2015, Wilson was “extremely racist — even by the standards of his time.” He infamously showed the racist movie The Birth of a Nation, a positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan, at the White House. Wilson supported and used the Espionage Act and Sedition Act to stifle dissent during World War I, repressing political speech and prosecuting and imprisoning opponents of the war. Writer Jonah Goldberg labeled Wilson a “liberal fascist.” Wilson also hid his debilitating strokes from the American people, even as his uncompromising stance on the League of Nations doomed U.S. involvement. Perhaps Costas is unaware of Wilson’s “disgraceful” acts.

Franklin Roosevelt carried on extramarital affairs with other women. He weaponized the IRS to go after political opponents. He also incarcerated in internment camps more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry because they were Japanese. FDR refused to come to the aid of potential Jewish refugees from Germany and other countries before and during World War II. He was complicit in covering up Stalin’s massive war crime in the Katyn Forest and in the forcible repatriation of Russians to Stalin’s Gulag and firing squads near the end of World War II. Would Bob Costas find any of those things “disgraceful?” Are the legions of FDR admirers, including those presidential “experts” who recently ranked him as our second-greatest president, a “toxic cult”?

Lyndon Johnson, wrote one reviewer of Robert Caro’s massive biography of the 36th president of the United States, “was corrupt, cruel, callous, crude, a vicious user of women, a bully of men and a shameless thief of elections.” He “embarrass[ed] subordinates” by making them listen to him talk “while he defecated.” He urinated in a washbasin in his office in the presence of female secretaries. He would humiliate his wife by slipping his hand under another woman’s skirt in her presence. He sent nearly 60,000 American boys to their deaths in Southeast Asia in a war that he repeatedly escalated but had no plan for winning. Does Costas think that Trump has done anything more disgraceful than that?

And then there is Bill Clinton. From Whitewater to Troopergate to Monica Lewinsky to renting out the Lincoln bedroom to donors, scandal after scandal plagued the 42nd president. He lied to a grand jury and to the American people and was credibly accused of obstructing justice. He was impeached on those grounds but acquitted by the Senate. He had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, including receiving oral sex near the Oval Office. He was accused by at least two women of rape and sexual assault. Does Bob Costas believe that those who continue to admire Bill Clinton are part of a “toxic cult”? 

Perhaps for Bob Costas “disgraceful” is all relative. And history — including the sordid history of “disgraceful” Democratic presidents — is merely ignored.