There's one question George Stephanopoulos never asked Alec Baldwin in his exclusive interview last week that keeps nagging at me.
"Would you have checked the gun if the scene you were shooting called for you to point it at your own head and pull the trigger?"
Why didn't George ask that question?
There was a perfect moment during the interview where this single follow-up question could've been a game-changer, and ABC News' star interviewer blew his opportunity.
If you'll remember, Stephanopoulos asked Baldwin to respond to his fellow actor George Clooney's comment that Baldwin's claim that he never personally checked his firearm before using it on set didn't square with his decades of experience on film sets.
"Well, there were a lot of people who felt it necessary to contribute some comment to the situation, which really didn't help the situation at all," Baldwin said, with his typical half-whisper delivery that conveys the lid of a pressure cooker beginning to hiss as the rage-explosion is kept tightly sealed from view while cameras are rolling.
"If your protocol is you're checking the gun every time, well, good for you. Good for you."
Baldwin then went on to explain that he'd been taught to never do anything to a firearm on the set if it's been handed to you by the professional on the set responsible for gun safety.
"The gun was supposed to be empty," Baldwin added. "I was told I was handed an empty gun."
This is the moment where any curious and self-respecting journalist would ask that follow-up question.
"If the scene called for you to point the gun at your own head and pull the trigger, would you have checked it to ensure it was empty?"
It's the only question to ask.
If Baldwin says he still wouldn't have checked the gun, we'd all know he's lying. There is nobody on earth who would point a gun at their head and pull the trigger without checking to ensure it is completely safe.
Famous scenes in "The Deer Hunter" and "Lethal Weapon" called for big-time Hollywood stars to do just that. I guarantee the safety protocols on those sets decades ago were more deliberate and judicious than on the set of Baldwin's film.
So, why didn't Stephanopoulos ask this single question?
Because it's not his job to get to the truth and challenge his interviewees with uncomfortable questions, his job is to get the interview in the first place. If he starts asking tough questions, he'll stop getting celebrities who are in trouble to agree to the interview in the first place.
From Biden's unchallenged lies about the Afghanistan withdrawal to Baldwin's embarrassing performance, Stephanopoulos's role is that of a celebrity sycophant, not a hard-nosed journalist.
After all, he's a celebrity himself. If he starts making life tough for his pals, it could make life tough for George, and we can't have that.
He's ABC News's Oprah, nothing more, nothing less. And that's fine. Just stop pretending he's anything more than that.
In the meantime, the rest of us will have to just hope that someone asks Baldwin this single, unavoidable question.
Maybe it will be a District Attorney.
