I actually think Dennis Rodman is being treated unfairly by the media.
Let me be clear, North Korea's Kim Jong Un is certainly a ruthless dictator that starves his people, promotes the spread of communism and poses a massive threat worldwide.
That said, Dennis Rodman is not an American diplomat and should not be expected to broker some sort of diplomatic deal the likes of what Woodrow Wilson or FDR could achieve.
I saw that interview between Cuomo and Rodman's crew and I think Cuomo was taking a way-too-aggressive approach towards Rodman. (Paraphrasing below)
Cuomo: Dennis, don't you think that you should ask your "friend" (Kim Jong Un) why he is holding a fellow US citizen hostage and possibly tell him that he should let him go?
Rodman: We are here to bring about diplomacy by way of basketball. We are former pro NBA players here to play basketball and that's what we are here to do.
First off, Rodman is not trained to use diplomacy tactics against ruthless dictators.
Secondly, if Rodman were to start questioning Kim Jong Un's decision to hold a US citizen captive and then proceeded to try to change his mind about his decisions, it's probably safe to say that Rodman and those 9 other former NBA players will probably serve as a 3-4 month supply of meat for those starved dogs Jung Un uses to savagely kill people (see: his uncle).
Rodman is doing what he knows best, which is to (A) garner media attention & (B) play basketball.
Not to mention that Rodman isn't rolling in money. I remember seeing him a few times in Midtown back around 2007-2008 working out at one of the local gyms and he looked terrible. I wouldn't be surprised if most of those guys are just trying to make some extra money and are simply going along for the ride. Surely, Kim Jung Un is probably paying these guys a generous amount of money for their time and service.
Rodman is not some sort of foreign diplomat capable of brokering any deals with an individual the likes of Kim Jung Un. For crying out loud, you can barely understand what Rodman is saying and he probably struggles in both conceptualizing thoughts, let alone verbalizing them.
"1"
Rodman, being a celebrity and known throughout the world, in a sense endorses Kim Jung Un and even giving him some credibility by buddying around with him and ignoring his regimes atrocities. A bad and evil person should be stigmatized and ostracized but all decent people. If it was made known that a friend of yours is a pedophile and "expedited" his father's death so that he could get at his inheritance and gotten away with it would he still be your friend? Would you still hang out with him and just shrug off his sins and say "Well, that's his personal life and it has nothing to do with me."
Who you endorse, and in Rodman's case, defend; and there's no question as to the type of man Kim Jung Un is, is a reflection of your character, values and standards of decency.
Having said this I believe that Rodman is not necessarily a bad person but is just clueless. He's a baffoon, a shallow person, and has lived his life as an unrepentant hedonist. Consequently, he has no real world view or moral compass and just lives for the moment and what makes him feel good at the time.
Would you feel the same way if we could go back in time and watch Rodman and Hitler hugging, clinking liquor bottles and yukking it up at a lavish banquet?
