Imagine you’re a network news anchor interviewing Janet Napolitano today.  What would be the #1 issue you’d want to ask her about? Of course it would be the report Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security recently put out suggesting that “right-wing” groups pose a potential terrorist threat, and singling out returning military veterans as posing a particular danger.

But you’re not Diane Sawyer [well, unless you are Diane, in which case I'd love to hear from you on this].  In the course of her extensive interview of Napolitano aired on Good Morning America today, Sawyer never found time to raise a single question about the report.  Sawyer instead focused on border security and assertions by Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich that PBO’s policies make the US more vulnerable.

The other broadcast network shows did hit Napolitano with some probing questions on the matter of the report:

At the Early Show, Maggie Rodriguez asked, among other things, “why put out a report like this that could breed this sort of divisiveness when you admit admit there’s no evidence these right-wing groups are planning anything?”

Responding, Napolitano waved the bloody red shirt of Tim McVeigh, even bragging that she had a “fairly significant part” in that case while working at the Justice Department.

At Today, Lauer also hit Napolitano with the report’s lack of specifics, and quoted critics including GOP leader John Boehner: “to characterize men and women returning home as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable.”  Napolitano dismissed the criticism as an attempt to make “political hay.”

In any case, it’s hard to see Sawyer’s silence on the subject as other than journalistic malpractice.

Note: both Rodriguez and Lauer suggested that Pres. Obama might/should reinstate the assault weapons ban.  Napolitano clearly had instructions to stay away from that hot-button issue.  She flatly told Rodriguez “that simply is not part of the plan that we’re talking about.” She told Lauer that doing something about the Mexican drug violence was too urgent to await congressional action on the “clearly controversial” issue of an assault weapons ban.

How did Sawyer raise the assault weapons ban?  She didn’t.  As with the “right-wing radicals” report, it seems Sawyer didn’t want to put Napolitano on the spot.