In discussing the IRS scandal with Newsmax, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said, “Using government, using the hand of government to intimidate people, it doesn’t get any worse than this.” It’s true that illegal and unethical activity in our government needs to be investigated and those guilty need to be brought to task. The problem is, like many strictly partisan “thinkers,” Priebus is suggesting that nothing like this, and certainly nothing as serious, ever occurred before, and implying that’s especially true when a Republican was in the White House.

In fact, just when it comes to the IRS, George W. Bush’s IRS targeted many left-leaning groups, including churches that preached anti-war messages, and other groups that criticized his administration. The truth is that, since its creation, the IRS has been used by administrations to target their opponents. Very few presidents actually suffer worse than a drop in approval ratings for that, if they suffer any consequences at all.

Aside from misusing the IRS, the Bush Administration tried to assign blame for the 2001 anthrax attacks on someone in the Middle East. Bush said there may have been a link to Al Qaeda, and Vice President Cheney said that Al Qaeda’s men were trained in handling and spreading those types of substances. The truth there was that, by the time they were pointing fingers, the FBI already knew that the anthrax strains in the packages came from U.S. military labs. While this may not have been using the government to intimidate Americans, it was using the power of their offices to mislead the American people for the purpose of strengthening fear and hatred of the Middle East.

During the Iran-Contra Affair, which involved diverting funds from arms sales to Iran (in exchange for releasing American hostages being held by Iranians in Lebanon) to the Contras in Nicaragua, Reagan initially denied that we’d even sent weapons to Iran, and then reversed his position a week later, but maintained that we didn’t trade those weapons for hostages. As for the diverted funds, that was at the behest of Lt. Col. Oliver North of the National Security Council, with the full knowledge of the NSC’s director, Admiral John Poindexter. While there was no actual evidence linking Reagan to the diversion of funds, it was known that supported the Contras in their fight against the Sandinistas. Poindexter resigned, North was fired, but his conviction got overturned and Poindexter was pardoned by Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush.

Of course, the GOP has been quick to compare any scandal that implicates Obama, no matter how small or manufactured, to Watergate, which seems to show a complete lack of understanding about what Watergate really was. Five staunch Nixon supporters, in an attempt to secure his re-election, broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, took pictures of documents, illegally tapped phones, and were arrested during a second break-in attempt. Nixon’s involvement was proven beyond any doubt, despite his lies that he knew nothing about it, and he resigned in disgrace before impeachment proceedings could begin. He was given a full pardon by President Ford in 1974.

But when it comes to misuse of government power, the worst, the absolute worst, at least in recent history, was George W. Bush’s “weapons of mass destruction” lie. This particular lie did not selectively target political opponents, or involve illegally obtaining people’s private information, or engage in illegal surveillance against Americans, or anything of that nature. Rather, we sent our own soldiers into a combat situation overseas for a lie. Soldiers were permanently injured, and killed, for a lie. Families were torn apart by grief over a lie. We toppled the entire government of a sovereign nation based on a lie. And we compromised what was left of our reputation after Kosovo with the rest of the world, for a lie.

It doesn’t get any worse than the IRS scandal? Reince Priebus needs to reread—or learn—our recent history.