Just when you thought Tina was permanently phoning it in, our favorite lady brought in the big guns last night to compete with C-SPAN's final episode of Booknotes. Viacom master Sumner Redstone, Vanity Fair scribe Dominick Dunne, and NY Times war-boy Dexter Filkins all made an appearance, leaving Henry the Intern to wonder if Tina might make a habit of featuring actual content.

Tina trotted out a strong lineup to compete with final edition of C-SPAN's "Booknotes." First, Sumner Redstone, "the toughest media mogul of all." The head of Viacom described "the problems related to CBS News" as "an extremely bad moment for me." He divulged Dan Rather's replacement will be "someone who is strong" with "unimpeachable integrity." "Stay tuned," he said, "because I don't know who we're going to pick, but I know it's going to be someone who is highly respected in the industry." He was baffled as to why Mel Kamarzin jumped to Sirius considering "he continually denigrated satellite radio." Redstone also praised the growth of MTV International and said, of the Janet Jackson incident, "We were the victim, we were not a culprit." Tina tried to corner Redstone into announcing the appointment of his daughter to run Viacom, but he didn't flinch, even though a stray cell phone rang in the room.

Next, Vanity Fair's Dominick "Nick" Dunne dished with Tina about the latest Princess Diana tapes — "the most unsettling of all," Tina thought. Both were stirred by the "latest hauntings of the Diana ghost," as she put it. (Part two of "Dateline: Princess Diana Revealed" airs tonight).

In an outstanding interview (Tina scored the right interviewee and asked the right questions), New York Times correspondent Dexter Filkins, stopped by Englewood Cliffs on his "brief furlough" from Fallujah and Baghdad. Filkins called Iraq "surreal": at first, "I didn't know if I was at a Fourth of July picnic or in the middle of a war." The young troops are "like a high school football team except that people die." When their buddies are killed —a quarter of the unit he followed into Fallujah were killed or wounded there— they quickly "put it out of their heads," and say, "I'll deal with that when I get home."

Filkins said most of the Marines enlisted to get out of their hometown but are professional, "very serious, very patriotic guys" who "trust they are doing the right thing but they don't sit around and debate it": "It's like you're looking down a straw, you can't see anything beyond what is in front of you."

The conditions in Iraq are increasingly difficult for the few journalists remaining because they have become targets. "Every time I leave the compound," Filkins said, "I'm putting my life at risk. . . It's almost impossible for us to mix freely with the Iraqis." He added, "It's very strange to come home [to New York] because the sacrifices of this war are not being worn equally."

But we sacrificed by watching the editor's desk roundtable discuss the meaning of all things superficial! From the front lines to the Oscar race! NYT cultural reporter Lola Ogunnaike, Jesse Kornbluth of HeadButler.com, and author Brad Gooch raved about Mike Nichols' "Closer." Peter Bart of Variety disagreed, saying the film was designed for New Yorkers and should be called "Distance." Tina said she "got a sense" of which husbands in audience were cheating on their wives (man, she's good).

The panel made Oscar predictions:
Kornbluth: "Finding Neverland"; Annette Bening for lifetime achievement
Bart: Leonardo DiCaprio for "The Aviator"; Michael Moore should get Best Foreign Film
Ogunnaike: Jamie Foxx
Gooch: Mike Nichols or "Eternal Sunshine..."
Tina: It's "between 'Kinsey' and 'Ray,' but I haven't seen 'The Aviator.'"

Hot picks
Kornbluth: "And There Was Light" by Jacques Lusseyran
Bart: the new MOMA
Ogunnaike: "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Gooch: B&N 2005 Writer's Faith Engagement Calendar
Tina: the "delicious" Vanity Fair cover story on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver (Ogunnaike said she's "going to read it on the ride back" to the city).

Major kudos and sincere thanks to the "Topic [A]" staffers who rummaged the NBC archives for Tina's appearance on "Today" during Princess Diana's wedding in 1981. The image of a hot, young Tina Brown (of Tatler) telling a hot, young Tom Brokaw that Princess Diana is "going to rebel against the father figure" is absolutely priceless and made me giddy.

Closing quote by Lord Byron: "What men call gallantry and gods adultery is much more common where the climate's sultry."