Basketball great Dennis Rodman is back in the news and, as has been the case recently, it has nothing to do with sports. Rodman is back in North Korea to visit his old buddy Kim Jong-un. The Washington Post is starting rumors that Rodman is acting as President Donald Trump’s secret envoy to the hermit kingdom, perhaps to free a handful of Americans being held by the regime, perhaps even to stop North Korea from building missiles to launch a nuclear strike against the United States and/or her allies.
The arguments for Dennis Rodman, secret ambassador
Besides the general idea, as Hot Air suggested, that it is 2017 and therefore anything can happen, Rodman is likely the only person on the planet who has any kind of personal relationship with both Trump and Kim Jong-un. He was on Celebrity Apprentice twice and endorsed Trump for president, for which the mercurial former businessman and reality show star was duly appreciative. Rodman has already been to North Korea twice and counts its dictator as a close personal friend. The basketball player has been dropping hints that his visit as a purpose that goes beyond a social call to his good friend, the insane tyrant of North Korea who has people killed by firing antiaircraft guns at them.
The arguments against sending a basketball player to North Korea
Of course, beyond exclaiming, ”Come on! Seriously? Seriously?!” a number of reasons exist that point against a secret plan by Trump to use Rodman as a back-channel negotiator. Rodman, to put it mildly, is not the most stable of characters. He’s had several marriages and troubles with alcoholism.
Rodman developed a well-deserved reputation as a bad boy of basketball. Logically he would be the last person one would send to dicker with an insane dictator for anything. Besides, no evidence exist of any recent contact between Trump and Rodman.
On the other hand, we are talking about Donald Trump, someone who does not adhere to the usual rules about anything and sets great store in personal relationships.
It is conceivable that a wink and a nod has occurred, and Rodman is on a mission, but with plausible deniability for the president.
What is probably really happening
Rodman is in North Korea as of this writing, and he is dropping hints about a mission he is allegedly on. What is likely happening is that the former basketball player has gone rogue and is on his own mission. The result will either be Rodman coming out with one of more American prisoners or him joining them in captivity followed, no doubt, by a nuclear strike on Seattle.
