718: Same Bed, Different Dreams (2020)
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You know it's weird about the presidency or, you know, one of the things it's weird. They all have to live in the same house, all the presidents. Everything about that, like, okay, when you win the Super Bowl, like, if the Patriots won the Super Bowl the previous year, you don't go and live in Bill Belichick's house. You don't drink coffee every morning in his kitchen, watch TV in his rec room at night. That would be strange. It's a personal giving in somebody's space. Like being a president Trump, for so many years, he said Barack Obama shouldn't be president, said he wasn't born in the United States. He's still picking fights with Barack Obama today. There was that White House correspondents didn't know the Trump attended back when Obama was president. Donald Trump is here tonight. Or Obama mocked him. All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, oh, seriously, just recently in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team, then Trump wins the White House and moves the annex and has to sleep in Barack Obama's old bedroom. He uses the same bathroom in the morning. And at least at the beginning, he must picture the previous guy there. Right? Now and then? Okay, at least once? It's weird that we make the most powerful man in the world do this. Sleep in the bedroom of somebody he might hate, somebody he might really see as an enemy. But, you know, that's a peaceful transfer of power. I hope it's not too partisan to say a few kind words today about the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next. We all still believe in that, right? Republicans and Democrats, we all stand by this basic principle of our constitution and our democracy. In 1992, Bill Clinton defeated the incumbent president, George H. W. Bush, Bush had to move out of the White House for the young president who'd sent him packing. Bush left this letter for Clinton in the Oval Office. It's been circulating around on the internet this week. The original is handwritten on White House stationery. It reads, "Dear Bill, when I walked into this office just now, I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that too. I wish you great happiness here. I've never felt the loneliness some presidents have described. There will be very tough times made even more difficult by criticism. You may not think it's fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice, but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our president when you read this note. You know, it's a word, our. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success. Now is our country's success. I'm rooting hard for you. Good luck, George." I know two people who cried when they read that this week. That's how far that letter seems from the America we live in right now. I like it that we make the new president go and sleep in the bedroom of his vanquished rival. I like how intimate that is, you know. I was more intimate than your own bedroom. I think underlines how we're all stuck with each other in this country, divided as we are, disagreeing so vehemently. It underlines how we can't get away from each other. The day in our program, the same bed, different dreams. We have stories of enemies sleeping together or working together or just stuck together in some way with very different hopes and goals. We have stories of deception and star-crossed haters from W.B. E.C. Chicago. This is American Life. I'm our class. Stay with us. That one, dream weevil. That title is going to make more sense as this story goes on. Just trust me on that. In 1986, a man and woman ran into a U.S. embassy in Vienna and said they needed asylum. They were from South Korea and they told embassy officials this incredible story of kidnapping and intrigue and being torn apart and thrown back together and years of dreaming about escape from their kidnapper while at the same time convincing their kidnapper that what they really wanted to do was stay with him. Nancy F. Dyke has the story. The woman who was kidnapped was a famous South Korean actress named Cheyun He. I read a book about it by a writer and film producer named Paul Fisher. He spent years researching
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