----John S. Higgins

       Lay Readers Sermons

        Is presidential character a proper topic for discussion and debate? During the U.S. presidential campaign of 1992, the question of character was pushed off the national agenda in favor of the issue of economics. In 1996, Robert Dole raised the subject of character more forcefully. Yet Clinton spin doctors dismissed the Dole arguments about character as diversions from legitimate issues of a presidential campaign--issues such as Medicare, gun control, and the national debt.

        Motion pictures about American presidents made since 1945 provide fascinating commentary on the issue. Films about America's presidents do not merely touch on the topic of character--they are obsessed with it. Indeed, from Darryl Zanuck's Wilson of 1944 to the apocalyptic Independence Day of 1996, Hollywood's films about the presidency devote considerable attention to the nature of presidential character.