The New Criterion and PJ Media might have to retire their Walter Duranty Prize named after the infamous New York Times correspondent who whitewashed Joseph Stalin’s crimes during the 1930s. I think Dennis Rodman has earned a lifetime achievement award in this category, as Bethany’s post makes clear. It is hard, certainly, to top his fawning tribute to the current and past dictators of North Korea. As the AP reported:
Ending his unexpected round of basketball diplomacy in North Korea on Friday, ex-N.B.A. star Dennis Rodman called leader Kim Jong-un an “awesome guy” and said his father and grandfather were “great leaders.”….
“He’s proud, his country likes him — not like him, love him, love him,” Rodman said of Kim Jong-un. “Guess what, I love him. The guy’s really awesome.”
Those words are accompanied by pictures of Rodman yukking it up with Kim Jong-un at a basketball game involving North Koreans and some Harlem Globetrotters that ended in an improbable 110-110 tie.
I am guessing Rodman missed this Human Rights Watch report, which notes:
Kim Jong-Un’s succession as North Korea’s supreme leader after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, has had no positive impact on the country’s dire human rights record. More than 200,000 North Koreans, including children, are imprisoned in camps where many perish from forced labor, inadequate food, and abuse by guards. Arbitrary arrest, lack of due process, and torture are pervasive problems. There is no independent media, functioning civil society, or religious freedom. Government policies have continually subjected North Koreans to food shortages and famine.
Admittedly, Rodman has no reputation to lose to here; this latest foray only reinforces the impression of an out-of-control wild man that basketball fans so vividly remember. But this trip was not just Rodman’s doing. It was underwritten by Vice Media, a documentary film production outfit that is under contract to HBO, a division of the giant Time Warner media empire.
One wonders what Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes thinks about the use of his shareholders’ money to fund a public-relations extravaganza on behalf of the worst regime on the planet? Did the filmmakers clear this little foray with Bewkes in advance, or was he as blindsided as the rest of the world?
Dennis Rodman? Who cares. As for Times-Warner, they'll read Rodman the riot act and he'll soon be recanting everything he said — or, more likely, insisting it was taken out of context. n nAnd as for PJ Media, if you love Geert Wilders and hate scientists who claim that humans are largely responsible for global warming, you'll love PJ Media.
actually, I *do* love Geert Wilders. he's one of the few non-dhimmified Europeans who sees the Islamist threat. n nbut you're right about Rodman. who cares, and who ever cared?
No warming for 17 years according to the head of the IPCC. Rising CO2 according to everybody. n nCare to explain the discrepancy? Let me help. It is caused by global warming.
The old man would simply have kidnapped Rodman and forced him to play 1-on-1 for hours at a time on a basketball court stretching out for acres in a neo-Stalinist stadium surrounded by 100,000 empty seats. "Rook at me!" the Glorious Leader would shout, barely controling the dribble, "I'm rike the Harem Grobletrotters!" n nAnd God forbid Rodman ever won a match.
As I am not a fan of basketball (or any sport, really), I have no idea whether there's any reason to pay attention to Rodman in the context of sports. n nI can't think of any reason for anyone to care, or even report on, what Rodman thinks or does outside of sports. n nThe obsessive interest of large portions of the public in the thoughts or doings of anyone who is a "celebrity" (no matter how they came to be well-known) is mystifying – and a little scary, considering that the electorate is drawn from that public.
dennis rodman ? maxine waters? barack obama? nwhat difference does it make? ni'm so proud to be an american, aren't you?
The Walter Duranty Prize should go to members of the media, politicians, or celebrities, like Sean Penn, who have a following for their political statements. Nobody, even the far left, is taking Dennis "the worm" Rodman seriously. n nDoes anybody care what position Rodman holds on Iran?
I think we would all be shocked, by the degree of acceptance the black community has "expressed" by remaining silent about what Dennis Rodman just said and did! n nPolitical correctness forbids all of us from insinuating, much less openly stating, how dreadfully anti-American, anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic millions of American blacks are. n nAnd how about the president of the US? Has he taken exception to the likes of Dennis Rodman? How about Keith Ellison? Maxine Waters? When are African Americans going to do what Islamic Americans must also do—decide which side they're on, and then bear the consequences of their moral stand? n nAs a Jewish man who was one of those arrested several times in "the marches and demonstrations" of the 1960s, I have the moral authority to say whatever I believe is true, without regard to political-correctness. I paid my dues, and therefore owe absolutely nothing to black Americans. Nor do they owe me. But they do owe the truth and basic decency to both their children and their country. I'm still waiting to see those debts paid. So far, the checks keep bouncing. n nWhat goes around comes around, and what I see today does not bode well for blacks. Barack Obama is bad enough. But Dennis Rodman? Jesse Jackson, Jr? His wife? And the list goes on, and on, and on. How about Detroit? Philly? Chicago? How much more can we endure from our fellow black citizens? In my case, not much. To quote Milton: "The world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide." n nIf only they dared! How much easier it is, to keep on demanding 'more rights,' 'more hand-outs,' more 'entitlements,' and to applaud the antics of a freak like Dennis Rodman and other "hip-hop" celebrities—than to choose normal American life—which is theirs for the taking, at last. After so many years, to have worked so hard—– only in order to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That—is the real promise Barack Obama brings to America's black citizens. Defeat. n nSo much hope, so much of it squandered. And for what? So Michelle Obama could show off her dress collection and hobnob with rich Europeans, while her husband 'disses" white Republicans? This has become little more than a presidency of cheap shots. Call it the Dennis Rodman White House.
Exactly right. Depressing and hopeless.