Over 200 years ago, Congress wrote its instructions for America’s first presidential election, although everyone knew the only candidate would be the nation’s greatest hero, George Washington. These days, America is rallying to different heroes: when high school students are polled to see whom they most admire in public life, Hollywood actors or sports figures routinely win. So, what explains this long leap from the revolutionary patriot to the Hollywood actor? In this program with Bill Moyers, the late distinguished American historian, Barbara Tuchman, explained her belief that Americans have lost their ability to distinguish between right and wrong. An advocate of the notion that it’s worth knowing where we’ve been, she looked at the changes in America since the days of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson; at the root of our contemporary predicament, she concluded, is the absence of a sense of honor. (30 minutes)