Henry the Intern watches Topic A, the chat-fest of the evidently soon-to-be-widowed¹ former New Yorker editor Tina Brown, so you don't have to. Evidently Tina was distracted this week because she wanted to party with the big kids in Boston last week, but she managed to squeeze in some new content on last night's re-run.

¹Tina will be 51 in November (she's a Scorpio/Sagitarius cusp!) — her husband Harold Evans is 76, and expressed regret in yesterday's NYT magazine that he was "really sorry for her" that he's "got to pop off soon." That's... sweet.

"Topic A" was not Tina's priority this week. Nor was she concerned with her weekly column. She was busy toasting Senator Clinton in Boston and negotiating with Sir Harold Evans. To accommodate this schedule, last night's episode was an encore of the July 4th edition, except for a new interview with economic-pessimist Peter Peterson, which replaced an interview with Ron Chernow.

Peterson, a Republican, has written a "scary new book" called Running on Empty that forecasts an enormous economic burden on future generations. In short, increasing debts and an aging population will lead to a sharp drop in the dollar and higher interest rates. He blames partisan politicians and economic leaders for not speaking out. "Part of the concern is that there would be negative consequences - more downside to upside - in speaking out," he said. "My enthusiasm for this administration's fiscal policy is very restrained." He was open to Kerry's ideas, but not convinced.

"Thank you so much for scaring the hell out of us," added Tina.

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