Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is co-editor of the book "Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns." He is a regular contributor to "Erin Burnett OutFront" and is a member of the OutFront Political Strike Team. For more political analysis, tune in to "Erin Burnett OutFront" at 7 ET weeknights. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012.
New York (CNN) -- Never fear. While North Korea is a closed communist state, a rogue nuclear power that regularly threatens war and starves its own people in prison camps, Dennis Rodman has just returned from some one-on-one diplomacy with its "dear leader" Kim Jong Un and has good news to report: "I love him. The guy is awesome. He was so honest."
I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't going to look much better in the eyes of history than Charles Lindbergh vouching for Hitler's character in the late 1930s.
But say this for the retired rebounding champion known as "The Worm" -- he got closer to the young dictator by walking in the front door of North Korea with the Harlem Globetrotters and Vice magazine than diplomats and intelligence services have gotten to date. As former Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Ganyard told ABC News, "There is nobody at the CIA who could tell you more personally about Kim Jong Un than Dennis Rodman, and that in itself is scary."
5 ways North Korea is getting stranger
After a February visit to North Korea that included a basketball outing with Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, former NBA star Dennis Rodman called the country's supreme leader a "friend for life." On May 7, Rodman asked Kim via Twitter to release U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae, who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified "hostile acts" against North Korea. In September, Rodman returned to Pyongyang for a five-day visit amid speculation he may negotiate for Bae. Rodman's relationship with Kim is certainly unprecedented, but it's not the first time a celebrity has tried to use the limelight to advocate causes or steer policy. Here are some other celebrities' forays into international diplomacy:
Photos: Celebrities' forays into diplomacy
Bonding over a shared love of basketball and getting drunk with the dictator's entourage sure sounds like a cozy way to visit a country where 3.5 million people have starved to death since 1995. But it requires a bit of willful ignorance to scoop up the state propaganda and be used as a dupe for their domestic state-run media, which is also likely to portray the diminutive dictator as an all-time dunking champ.
NBA commissioner shocked by Rodman trip
Dennis Rodman's basketball diplomacy
In a rambling interview on ABC News' "This Week," Rodman defended his trip and his budding friendship with Kim, telling George Stephanopoulos: "I don't condone what he does, but as far as a person to person, he's my friend" and then went on to the fetid well of moral equivalence to dismiss the prison camps and reports of mass murder as "just politics."
Rodman is far from the first celebrity to be used for publicity purposes to prop up a dictator and even profess real friendship.
Lindbergh cozied up to Adolf Hitler in a naive attempt to keep America isolationist in World War II. American singer, actor and attorney Paul Robeson was taken in by the Soviet Union and proclaimed its lack of segregation was evidence of freedom's progress while millions were being murdered by Joseph Stalin in gulags.
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez was proud of his personal friendship with Cuba's communist dictator Fidel Castro, propelled by long nights of drinking and philosophizing by the Caribbean Sea.
In more recent years, stars have taken big money from dictators in exchange for private concert performances, including Seal and Hilary Swank appearing at Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's multimillion dollar 35th birthday bash (Swank later apologized), Nelly Furtado performing for Moammar Gadhafi (she later gave the money back) and Mariah Carey, Usher and Beyonce performing for Gadhafi's sons in St. Barts. (My colleagues at The Daily Beast put together a useful gallery of these and other "stars who hang with dictators.")
The greed that simply compels one to take a gig, no matter who is paying the bill, is different than the impulse to ingest talking points and benefit from the privileges of friendship with mass murderers who can sometimes seem charmingly insane in person.
Just because you're crazy doesn't mean you're stupid and just because a man can be a monster in his vise-like grip on a state doesn't mean it should be a compelling revelation that he is also in fact human.
As David Remnick detailed in his literary and journalistic portrait of the Soviet Union, "Lenin's Tomb," Stalin was a fan of American musicals and after one long day of purging his own ranks with arbitrary executions, he retired to watch a comedy called "Happy Guys."
This is where judgment and moral clarity come in handy -- two concepts rarely associated with Dennis Rodman. That's why George Stephanopoulos was right to hand him a copy of the Human Rights Watch report on North Korea after Rodman declared his intention to return to North Korea for another visit sometime soon.
Vacationing in dictatorships is always a bad idea, even if it is justified by the self-serving notion of conducting personal diplomacy. It is still, as the Sex Pistols once said, "a cheap holiday in other people's misery."
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon.
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In March 2003, Dixie Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines said to a London audience, "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." That comment led to nationwide backlash and the band has not had a single chart the top 30 since. In this photograph, the Dixie Chicks perform live on stage at The Point Theatre on September 18, 2003, in Dublin, Ireland.
While in self-induced exile in Europe, legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh became an advocate for the prevention of World War II. In 1938, Lindbergh penned a secret memo to the British, stating that military response to Adolf Hitler's violation of the Munich treaty would be "suicide." In 1941, he spoke on behalf of the isolationist America First Committee in Des Moines, Iowa, claiming that if the U.S. were to engage in war against Germany, victory would not be likely. Here, Lindberg testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January 1941.
In 1972, actress Jane Fonda visited North Vietnam in protest of the Vietnam War. Fonda's visit to Hanoi was marked by a number of controversial events, including a picture showing Fonda seated on an anti-aircraft battery used against U.S. forces. Fonda later apologized for the photo and for the harm it may have caused servicemen and their families. In the photo above, Fonda tours destruction in Hanoi on July 25, 1972.
After her career as child star, Shirley Temple Black was appointed ambassador to the United Nations by President Richard Nixon, ambassador to Ghana by President Gerald Ford and ambassador to Czechoslovakia by President George H.W. Bush. Pictured, Temple Black confers with her secretary, Ruth Underwood, in her embassy office in December 1989.
Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, also known as Ginger Spice, became a representative for the U.N. Population Fund in 1999 and shortly after released the documentary Geri's World Walkabout, which documented her travels with the UN. In 2006, Halliwell traveled to Zambia to promote the prevention of HIV/AIDS and bring awareness to the steadily increasing rates of maternal death. Here, Halliwell speaks at a news conference on global maternal mortality in Washington in May 2008.
In 2006, singer Harry Belafonte, a longtime activist, appeared in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and made controversial statements about President George W. Bush: "No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people support your revolution." Belafonte, center, speaks with residents of a low-income neighborhood in Caracas before meeting Chavez in January 2005.
In 2002, a year before the war in Iraq began, actor Sean Penn met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and paid a visit to al-Mansour Children's Hospital in Baghdad. Aziz says Penn spoke very strongly against aggression against Iraq by U.S. forces. In 2007, Penn also visited Chavez, to whom he penned a letter criticizing Bush.
Actress Mia Farrow, a longtime advocate for child rights, traveled to Darfur in 2004 (seen here) and 2006 to advocate for the freedom of Darfuri refugees. Farrow later wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that is widely credited with heightening awareness that eventually led to Sudan accepting a U.N. peacekeeping force.
U2 frontman Bono, who was named the most politically effective celebrity of all time by the National Journal, has campaigned for third-world debt relief since 1999. In March 2002, he appeared next to President George W. Bush for the unveiling of a $5 billion aid package for the world's poorest countries. The two also attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February 2006, seen here.
In 2012, actor George Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience during a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy. Clooney has advocated vehemently for a resolution of the Darfur conflict and appeared in the documentary "Darfur Now."
After filming a movie in Cambodia, actress Angelina Jolie began to visit refugee camps around the world and in 2001 was named a goodwill ambassador by the U.N. Refugee Agency. Since then, Jolie has visited refugee camps in more than 30 countries (such as Lebanon in September, seen here) and has been promoted to become special envoy of High Commissioner Antonio Guterres, representing him at the diplomatic level.
Singer Bob Geldof has been a prominent advocate for anti-poverty efforts in Africa alongside fellow Irishman Bono. In 1984, he helped found the charity Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and organized the Live Aid concert the following year. Here, Geldof and Bono hold a news conference on aid to Africa in May 2007.
In 2004, Oprah Winfrey documented her travels to South Africa, where she brought attention to young children affected by HIV/AIDS and living in poverty. Her trip brought in $7 million in donations from around the world. Three years later, Winfrey established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Actor Don Cheadle has been a prominent activist for the end of genocide in Darfur. Along with fellow actors like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Cheadle helped co-found the Not On Our Watch Project, an organization focused on preventing mass atrocities. Cheadle was named U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador in 2010. Pictured, Cheadle speaks to members of Congress about the genocide, January 2005.
Actress Ashley Judd, a global ambassador for YouthAIDS, actively campaigns for awareness of international poverty. In 2010, Judd traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to raise awareness of how sexual violence is driven by conflict minerals in Congo. Judd has met with several heads of states and political leaders and recently her political involvement and possible run for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky has come under fire from conservative super PAC American Crossroads. Pictured, Judd speaks with Indian women while touring to promote AIDS awareness in Mumbai, March 2007.
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