And here's to Bob Costas.

Every so often, you have to give props to someone who shows some spine and principle. How about Bob Costas, who started out strong:

While some cable TV hosts are making their living off the Natalee Holloway case this summer, Bob Costas is having none of it.

Costas, hired by CNN as an occasional fill-in on ''Larry King Live,'' refused to anchor Thursday's show because it was primarily about the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba. Chris Pixley filled in at the last minute.

''I didn't think the subject matter of Thursday's show was the kind of broadcast I should be doing,'' Costas said in a statement. ''I suggested some alternatives but the producers preferred the topics they had chosen. I was fine with that, and respectfully declined to participate.''

And for an encore, Costas lays a richly-deserved smackdown on TV poker:

The poker craze apparently has not moved Bob Costas.

On his HBO show, he said, "I hold in my hand the New York Times, and in the sports section, their new regular column on poker….Now at the risk of alienating degenerates from coast to coast, I must say I find it hard to get worked up over a sport that boasts all the pageantry and magic of Saturday night at my Uncle Murray's basement….

You go, Bob.

And, sadly, at the other end of the spectrum, well ... fuck you, Lance.