There have been six movies since 1993 featuring various characterizations of the President of the United States. All except Air Force One had a common theme.

The first in 1993 was Warner Brothers’ Dave, starring Kevin Kline as Dave Kovak, a common citizen who resembles the sitting president Harrison Mitchell whose sexual excesses get the better of him. When the real president falls into a coma, Dave fills in for him in appearances both public and private, including sleeping with the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver).

In 1995, The American President, produced by Castle Rock portrays a liberal, widowed president (Michael Douglas) who has a romantic encounter with an environmental lobbyist (Annette Bening). Over the objections of his advisors, he spirits his girlfriend into bed in, of all places, the Lincoln Bedroom. Upon hearing about the illicit romp, an archconservative Senator (Richard Dryfuss) rants and blusters on about the President’s "sinful behavior" to the amusement of everyone in the story, including the media. The implicit message in this movie is that the moral character of the President is irrelevant when compared with his gallant efforts to save the environment.

In 1997, New Line Cinema gave us Wag the Dog, a movie about a President who was caught in a scandalous affair mere days before his reelection. One of his advisors (Robert DeNiro) contacts a top Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to manufacture a "war" in Albania in an attempt to distract the nation from the President’s dalliance and, in contrast, to portray him as a hero.

The same year, Castle Rock released Absolute Power, taken from the saying, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." President Richmond (Gene Hackman) believes that everything he does is beyond reproach, including an affair or two. In this reverse morality play, the story’s hero turns out to be jewel thief Luther Whitney (Clint Eastwood).

Primary Colors, released this year by Universal Pictures, chronicled a Clinton-esque presidential candidate named Jack Stanton (John Travolta) who had to deal with a sex scandal along the way to being elected. Internet Movie Database summarized the film this way. "Governor Stanton can not seem to keep his trousers on long enough for him not to get into trouble and win the election!"

The similarities in these films are obvious. Their similarities to the present White House scandals are sad. The sexual improprieties of the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, have become plot lines for today’s movies. And, these moral lapses have also become punch lines for today’s late night comedians.

It is not the least bit funny that the credibility of the most powerful office in the most powerful nation in the world has become the butt of cheap jokes. It cheapens the office and the nation that office represents. Filmmakers have been stooping to the lowest common denominator with increased regularity over the past several years.