Published: Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013 / Updated: Monday, Mar. 11, 2013 05:08 PM
Ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman in North Korea; Obama administration shrugs
WASHINGTON --
Former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman, known for his vivid hair colors and flamboyant fashion, seems to be reviving his bad-boy persona, arriving Tuesday in North Korea on a surprise trip to the pariah state.
The State Department said curtly that it didn’t have any position on this “private travel,” though Rodman said on Twitter that he was looking forward to meeting the reclusive leader Kim Jong Un, who just set off global alarms with a third nuclear test that’s drawing a sharp rebuke from the United Nations.
“It’s true, I’m in North Korea,” Rodman tweeted on his official Twitter account. “Looking forward to sitting down with Kim Jung Un. I love the people of North Korea.”
He added, “I come in peace.”
Rodman – along with some members of the Harlem Globetrotters – is in Pyongyang for a filmed visit that Vice, a media production company based in Brooklyn, has dubbed “basketball diplomacy.” He’s scheduled to lead a basketball clinic for children and shoot hoops with top North Korean players for a Vice production that’s set to air on HBO in April.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the department hadn’t been notified of Rodman’s travel plans, and he dismissed the journey as a harmless visit to play basketball with children who are growing up in one of the world’s most isolated countries.
That was far different from the stance the department took in January when Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson visited North Korea. Then, the State Department emphasized the lack of diplomatic relations and called the trip “unhelpful.”
Ventrell said Rodman’s case had a different mission, so the department wouldn’t take a position or seek to debrief him on his return.
“We’re talking about somebody who is a former significant American official and businessman who were going there on different, for different purposes,” Ventrell said of Richardson and Schmidt. “Here, we’re talking about sports.”
Email: hallam@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @hannahallam
McClatchy Interactive is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since MIReference.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not McClatchy Interactive.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.