That frightening thought comes from ABC’s intelligence analyst at the beginning of this interview by George Stephanopoulos of Dennis Rodman, but it’s not as bizarre as the interview itself. Stephanopoulos can barely believe Rodman’s apologetics for the leader of the world’s most oppressive regime, based entirely, it seems, on the new Dear Leader’s love of … basketball.  It’s more of an experience than an interview:

“He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him,” Rodman told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” “He said, ‘If you can, Dennis – I don’t want [to] do war. I don’t want to do war.’ He said that to me.”

The athlete also offered Kim some diplomatic advice for potential future talks with President Obama.

“[Kim] loves basketball. And I said the same thing, I said, ‘Obama loves basketball.’ Let’s start there,” Rodman said.

Honestly, the ABC article does a disservice to Stephanopoulos.  He offered a number of incredulous questions to Rodman, such as pointing out that Kim starves millions of people and puts people in prison camps.  When Rodman suggests that it’s no different than what we do here, Stephanopoulos asks, “We put people in prison camps here?” At the end of the interview, Stephanopoulos hands Rodman a report from Human Rights Watch and tells him to deliver it to his newfound “friend” the next time he visits North Korea.  While Stephanopoulos never quite gets around to explicitly saying “You’re a moron,” the subtext is pretty clear.

Final thought: Can you imagine how the CIA agent who had to debrief Rodman must have felt about that prospect?