When George Stephanopoulos flew all the way to Syria for nothing

PBS's Charlie Rose was lucky enough (or good enough) to land Syria President Bashar al-Assad's first interview since his military allegedly gassed government rebels in the country.

ABC "Good Morning America's" George Stephanopoulos wasn't so lucky, according to the New York Times:

The Syrian government wanted an American morning show to televise an interview with Mr. Assad on Wednesday, as a rebuttal of sorts to President Obama’s Tuesday-night [last week] address to the nation, according to ABC staff members. Mr. Assad’s previous interview, with Charlie Rose of CBS and PBS, had received international attention on Monday. So Mr. Stephanopoulos secretly flew to Beirut, Lebanon, just as Mr. Rose had before the CBS crew drove across the border to Damascus.

But Mr. Assad must have had a change of heart, because once Mr. Stephanopoulos was in Beirut, the interview was called off. Mr. Stephanopoulos returned to the United States empty-handed.

@eScarry