I couldn’t get hold of a copy of the new Tina Brown Newsweek out here–not even at LAX. So I’m left to judge it for now by its cover, which is … unexpectedly awful. … A featured story on Hillary Clinton ( just like the first issue of Talk, which showcased a disastrous HRC profile). … A piece by Kathleen Parker that’s not about what a jerk Elliot Spitzer was. … Both apparently linked to some bullshit N.Y. conference Brown is staging for 150 Women Movers and Shakers etc. … A piece from Harvey Weinstein, the mogul behind Talk, suggesting that Newsweek may wind up saying more about Tina’s relationships with various bigshots (Harvey, Hillary, the Hundred and Fifty) than about what’s happening in the world. (Maybe staffers could put out a second, riveting, magazine called ‘Why We Really Ran That Piece.’) The general impression: staleness, meaning a lack of both a) editorial imagination and b) news. Readers could be forgiven for checking for dust to make sure the magazine didn’t drop from the attic where they stored it around 1999. I had expected that some of the desperate hit-crazed undercurrent of the Daily Beast might carry over into Newsweek’s initial presentation. But desperation would be an improvement. Desperation is a form of vitality.