As the worm turns

And I remember the days when Dennis Rodman showed up for a press conference wearing a wedding dress and posed naked for PETA.

And now?

Richardson, a former congressman, governor and United Nations ambassador, was pilloried by some and ignored by many when he went to North Korea with Google’s chairman in January. The White House issued a snippy statement calling the visit “unhelpful,” and Sen. John McCain borrowed a line from Lenin and called the two “useful idiots” in a tweet.

Richardson didn’t even get a meeting with North Korea’s new boy dictator, Kim Jong Un, who took over after the death of his father, the so-called Dear Leader. The best Richardson rated was a vice minister.

If I had to pick a sound effect for the trip, it would be “pfffft.”

Meanwhile, Rodman has gotten gentle reviews and been treated like a legitimate political commentator for his recent foray into North Korea, in which he watched the Harlem Globetrotters take on some North Korean players, had dinner and drinks with young Kim and then pronounced him “awesome.”

Rodman is now the American with the greatest personal knowledge of Kim (gulp), and Richardson is looking like yesteryear’s news.

Dennis Rodman talks to reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 1. (The associated press)

When I visited North Korea in 2005 with Richardson to cover one of his trips (best vacation ever spent under constant government surveillance!), I was taken around by government handlers to see the weird things the North Korean regime is proud of. That included the postage stamp museum in Pyongyang (where you can guess whose picture is on most of the stamps), a nuclear power plant where they weren’t having anything to do with enriching uranium at all (honest) and a library that didn’t have any books.

I also got to tour two cave-like museums up in the mountains that hold all of the gifts people ever gave to Kim Il Sung, also known as the Great Leader. On display there, among the VCRs, swords, briefcases, spears and ashtrays, was a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.

It turns out the Great Leader and his son Kim Jong Il, aka Dear Leader, were big Chicago Bulls fans. So is Dear Leader’s son, Kim Jong Un, who I don’t think has settled on a nickname, but I’ll bet it will include the word “leader.”

And that explains why Rodman, the tattooed and pierced former Bulls and Pistons forward, was in Pyongyang. (Rodman’s nickname is “The Worm,” and maybe after this trip he’ll change it to The Dear Worm.)

When Richardson used to beat a path back and forth between Pyongyang and Santa Fe, we called it “green chile diplomacy.” Rodman is calling for “basketball diplomacy,” and the former rebounding champ, child-support scofflaw and Madonna boyfriend thinks that keeping North Korea from pointing a nuclear missile at the United States is as simple as getting another Bulls fan, President Barack Obama, to pick up the phone.

“He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him,” Rodman told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”

Rodman isn’t the first American to fly into Pyongyang, get treated to a little kimchi kindness and come back singing the praises of a brutal dictator. Former New Mexico Gov. Dave Cargo, who spent time with the elder Great Leader in Pyongyang in 1991 and 1993, called the dictator “a very intelligent guy,” “very congenial” and “very humble.”

Which all goes to show that every generation has its North Korean dictator and every North Korean dictator has his pet American. Green chile diplomacy was good provincial fun for us while it lasted, and who knows whether it had any effect?

This latest hoops diplomacy was short-lived. Obama did not pick up the phone and chat about the Jordan glory years with Kim. Instead, the U.S. and China supported new U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea, and Kim doubled down on his nuclear threats.

Maybe it’s not time to leave the nuttiness that is North Korea to The Worm.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal