Dennis Rodman Did What In North Korea?

The bizarre friendship between Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un continues to grow. During Rodman’s latest trip to North Korea, Kim reportedly showered the basketball player with hedonistic pleasures, providing him with parties, alcohol and, in the delicate words of one report, “specialized personal entertainments of the female persuasion.” A hospitable dictator, that Kim.

The Double Team star just returned from his third visit to the hermetic country, ostensibly to help set up a North Korean basketball team. While reporting from inside the DPRK is difficult to come by, the author of a widely-respected private foreign policy newsletter in Washington reports that Rodman was lavished with “spectacular” amenities during his most recent visit, and treated far better than any diplomat or foreign dignitary.

“Sources in the region report that during his visit earlier this year, Kim provided Rodman with what we might characterize as specialized personal entertainments of the female persuasion, and, they argue, that is a special inducement for Rodman this time,” wrote Chris Nelson in an excerpt from The Nelson Report obtained by The Daily Beast. “We can’t be sure exactly what it was, but whatever it was it must have been quite spectacular.”

Rodman frequently calls Kim his “friend for life,” and says he’ll be back soon for another visit. The unlikely bromance between the two would be charming if Kim wasn’t an oppressive Stalinist who throws innocent people in prison camps and drunkenly orders the execution of his enemies. Rodman’s frequent trips to the DPRK have quaintly been referred to as “basketball diplomacy,” but the notion that there’s been any diplomacy of which to speak is questionable at best.

For example, many had hoped that Rodman, as one of the few Westerners to share a good personal relationship with Kim, might use his visit to help secure the release of Kenneth Bae, an American imprisoned in North Korea for over a year under dubious espionage charges. But when reporters asked Rodman upon his return if he’d talked to Kim about Bae’s imprisonment, he defiantly told them that it’s “not my job to ask about Kenneth Bae,” then lost his temper.*

“As Obama about that, ask Hillary Clinton!,” Rodman screamed shortly before running away from the press scrum. “Ask those assholes!”

That being said, there’s always the possibility — however remote — that all of this is a ruse, and that Rodman and Kim are actually engaged in super-secret diplomatic negotiations under the guise of setting up a basketball league. But we’re not holding our breath.

*Rodman did make one entreaty, via Twitter, for Kim to “do me a solid” and release Bae. It wasn’t successful.