Dennis Rodman Diplomacy : Call Me Maybe?

What you’re about to read isn’t a rejected Saturday Night Live skit or a transcript of a bad stand up comedy set. This happened. Seriously, it did. Dennis Rodman, the retired NBA player and Celebrity Rehab cast member hung out with the most notorious dictator on the planet, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and the two hit it off so well that George Stephanopulos debriefed Rodman on a Sunday morning political show. Uh huh, Dennis Rodman, the dude who married himself for a book in 1996, and then Carmen Electra a couple of years later, is now the first American to meet with Kim Jong Un and perhaps the only man still alive with first hand knowledge of the ruler of North Korea.

Please, don’t click away. This really went down, and there’s more.

If we are to believe an alcoholic deadbeat dad who has only done one thing well his whole life, rebound basketballs, then all U.S. President Barack Obama needs to do to promote World Peace and get along with North Korea is call Kim Jong Un and talk hoops. Bam! There. That’s out there. What, you want more? Well, I’ve got more.

A few days ago, Dennis Rodman accompanied The Harlem Globetrotters on a mission of round ball diplomacy to the hermit kingdom of deplorable human rights, North Korea. It was being filmed by an HBO crew for an upcoming series produced by Vice Television. That’s right, Vice and Dennis Rodman; the peanut butter and jelly of entertainment. Standing in for the Washington Generals (the perennial loser to the Globetrotters) was a North Korean team that borrowed a couple of Americans from the ‘Trotters. In a match up of pure skill with no script or underhandedness, the game ended tied 110-110. Dennis and Kim watched from a special box and later the thirty-year-old dictator who probably killed a dozen people that day, hosted an “epic feast” for everyone involved. I’m sure the leftovers were dispersed among North Korea’s starving underclass. Then, I’m also sure Dennis Rodman has squared his $870, 000 in back child support to the mother of two of his children, Michelle.

And now for more.

After landing back in the United States. Dennis Rodman was invited on This Week with George Stephanopulos to discuss the bang-up ambassador work the man known as the Worm did with Kim Jong Un. Rodman was asked about Un’s human rights record and general evil nature. Wearing a blue baseball cap, sunglasses, several facial piercings and a jacket with money all over, Dennis Rodman responded to questions about Un.

“I love him, he’s awesome.” adding, “He’s a good guy to me, as a person to person, he’s my friend. I don’t condone what he does.” Rodman was asked if President Obama should talk to Kim Jong Un. Rodman answered, “He loves basketball. … I said Obama loves basketball. Let’s start there” as a way to warm up relations between U.S. and North Korea. yeah, breaking down the Heat’s chances to win win a second straight title will shut down Un’s prison camps, and make him stop his nuclear weapons programs, Dennis.

Rodman must have made a good impression because Kim Jong Un had his Defense Council tell the U.N. in January after the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn the North’s successful rocket launch in December and expand penalties against Kim’s government, “settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words.” The statement also promised “a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle that has lasted century after century.”

But we’ll always have basketball Un. Hey, you want to keep Rodman next time and send some cash to his babies’ mamas? We’ll call that our treaty that was never signed after the Korean War. Because, technically, it’s still “on” like Donkey Kong between United States and North Korea.

The State department has no plans to talk to Dennis Rodman. Why would they? Two crazy people hung out for two days and stayed drunk most of the time.

I write fiction. But if I ever wrote this story, I would toss it in the trash. So should the rest of us.