Basketball Idiocy

I'm going to say this bit first, I've never been a fan of Dennis Rodman.  I think he has a bad attitude, is unsportsmanlike and is reckless.  But on top of my original feelings about him, this week you can add completely and utterly mystified to that list.  How on earth can an ex-basketball player with no ties to the government, and a bad reputation, somehow gain papers that would allow him into a closed state like North Korea on multiple occasions?  That of course, is only mystery number 1.

Mystery number 2 is why on earth are any of the news stations giving him air time to talk jibberish on topics he has no understanding of?  And mystery number 3 is the most confounding of all: why aren't we more afraid of what he's doing?  The man has become "friends" (his words) with one of the most delusional and ruthless dictators currently living in the world today.  He talks with him and plays games with him.  And now, based on comments Rodman has made to the press, he's discussing foreign politics with the man.  One subject he obviously knows nothing about.  If he had, he'd never have condemned a US citizen living in a North Korean prison camp on American television.  Now that he has, I'm sure the propoganda machines are going on about the American people believing Kenneth Bae is guilty.  We'll have an even harder time now, getting this man out of their custody.  

What Rodman thinks he's doing, and what he is in fact succeeding in doing are 2 very different things.  You get the feeling he thinks, he's actually persuading the dictator to be more of a humanitarian and less of a tyrant; and cool the waters between our allies and theirs.  However what he is doing, is heating back up the long-standing rift between North Korea and most of the world.  The North Korean government thinks Rodman speaks for us and anything he says will surely be thought of as an "American" ideal, rather than a ideal of an apparently drunk ex-basketball player.  And by giving him the airtime, we're cementing those thoughts.

What we need to do, is get Dennis Rodman out of North Korea and not allow him to go back. If he won't stand for that plan, then let him stay in their country permanently.  If Kim Jong Un and the North Korean government officials are as great as he says they are, I'm sure he won't have any problems with making it his new home.