Harvard is kicking up its heels over the $100 million donation from alum David Rockefeller, Sr., whose generosity helps quash doubts about president Drew Faust’s fundraising prowess. Who said a bespectacled historian can’t rake in the dough? Also padding her bank account is former eBay exec Meg Whitman, whose compensation package last year topped $10 million, according to the AP. She’ll need every penny if she decides to run for governor of California in 2010, as is rumored. Cash and politics made for an embarrassing mix this week, as Larry Flynt capitalized on the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal with a new governor-themed porno, and Al Franken rushes to convince Minnesota voters that his failure to pay $70,000 in taxes was an honest mistake. Jeremiah Wright did his best to undercut the Barack Obama campaign with a series of over-the-top press conferences. Bill O’Reilly marked the occasion by asking Hillary Rodham Clinton the World’s Most Leading Question: "Do you believe this Reverend Wright guy?" Joining the rarified realm of politicians beyond reproach, Liberian president was the subject of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which took top honors at the Tribeca Film Festival. Also appearing at Tribeca: Jeffrey Sachs in Madonna’s I Am Because We Are, which describes the diva’s good deeds in Malawi. Elsewhere in the arts, Keith Gessen bemoaned the failure of his semi-autobiographical novel All the Sad Young Literary Men to outperform Sloan Crosley’s memoir I Was Told There’d Be Cake on the Amazon charts. Competitive instincts play out less awkwardly in the business world, where Steven Ballmer, in response to Yahoo’s coy response to Microsoft’s overtures, is reportedly considering a hostile takeover. Fight fiercely, Harvard.
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