Yes, that was New York Governor David Paterson paying a visit to Elaine’s on the Upper East Side last Thursday night. The governor and an aide came from a fundraising dinner/birthday tribute. (The gov’s actual birthday is May 20.)

Of course, in New York, the state government is in disarray. One of the prime culprits is a Democratic State Senator named Hiram Monserrate. Last week he jumped sides and took up with Republicans in what looked like a political coup.

I don’t know if Paterson knows that it’s Monserrate who backed a controversial Scientology program for detoxing firemen who who became ill in the September 11th/World Trade Center tragedy of 2001.

It’s the same Monserrate accused of beating up his girlfriend, Kara Giraldo, last year. He was indicted this past March on three counts of felony assault. In that case, Monserrate, according to published reports, has also been accused of soliciting funds for legal defense from a lobbyist.

Said Paterson, with a sigh: ‘I can’t catch a break here.’

He added that he was definitely running for election when his term is up in 2010. Paterson succeeded Elliott Spitzer as New York governor in 2008 after the latter’s infamous hooker scandal. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into him. Last August he took a Jet Blue flight back from the Democratic Convention in Denver. Everyone on the plane applauded him. His approval rating has dropped considerably since then.

Also at Elaine’s on a packed Thursday night: theater producers Jimmy Nederlander (with beautiful wife Margo) and Terry Allen Kramer; actor Bob Balaban; record producer Phil Ramone; rock cult hero Garland Jeffreys; documentary filmmakers DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus; movie producer Marty Bregman; ‘Law & Order SVU’ actress Tamara Tunie and husband singer Gregory Generet.

Yoko Ono loves to support worthy causes concerning peace, love, and understanding. But she rarely puts money where her mouth is.

Yoko Ono

Even though Ono is a toweringly wealthy woman thanks to John Lennon‘s estate, in recent years her actual charitable donations have dwindled.

For a long time Ono gave money through her Spirit Foundation. But a look at the most recent tax filing for Spirit shows that she’s slowed down to a trickle.

In 2007, Ono made donations through Spirit totaling $273,000 to a Japanese group that builds classrooms in the Far East and Third World countries ($227,559); Bailey House in New York ($25,000), and London’s National Holocaust Memorial Day Trust ($20,000).

It’s not much money despite the fact that, according to the 2007 tax filing for the Spirit, Ono has $4,225,000 invested for the foundation in T-bills.

The foundation lists $1,170,734 as the fair-market value of all its assets.

A source who knows Ono’s business dealings says, ‘Yoko is very generous. She gives a lot more money than that. For tax reasons, she doesn’t give it all through the Spirit Foundation.’

We’ll take their word for it.

The source also adds that Ono is not as wealthy as she once was, and certainly nowhere near Paul McCartney. ‘John never got to have a big solo career, or tour around the world dozens of times. Paul’s had all that. Even when John was alive he didn’t tour and put out few records.’

The other defense given is that Lennon and McCartney do not control their own publishing. That belongs, famously, to Michael Jackson and Sony/ATV Music Publishing. But thanks to a 1927 law, Ono’as Lennon’s heir’receives Jackson’s portion of ownership of the Lennon-McCartney songs, whereas McCartney does not.

Still, the Lennon estate, thanks to the Beatles, is a gold mine. What with the Beatles music continually throwing off revenue from movies like ‘Across the Universe’ and the Las Vegas ‘Love’ show, not to mention this fall’s “Rock Band” release and the re-launch of the whole Beatles catalog, ‘no one,’ says a source ‘will be throwing Yoko a telethon anytime soon.’

But it’s the lack of any real charitable vision that’s surprising. Ono has never found a specific cause with which she could use Lennon’s fortune to help people. Her giving is scattershot, at least through Spirit. In 2006, she gave $10,000 to a local school in Harlem, which was nice. In 2005, she sent a measly $5,000 to the Citizens Advice Bureau in the Bronx to serve meals to the poor in that bureau. She must have been interested in hunger that year since she also sent $100,000 to America’s Second Harvest.

Earlier years’ donations weren’t much better. The Spirit Foundation gave away a rather small amount from 2000 through 2005: a total of $2.6 million.

Oddly, the annual John Lennon Songwriting Contest’the deadline for which is today’is not part of the Spirit. That group, which sends a bus around to rock concerts all summer, is funded by commercial sponsors.

Wondering why movies continually star the same people over and over?

One reason is that there are plenty of Oscar winners and Hollywood heavyweights who’ve either retired or just made so much money that they don’t care anymore about having a career.

The No. 1 example? Gene Hackman. The two-time Oscar winner (”The French Connection,” “Unforgiven”) last made a movie in 2004’”Welcome to Mooseport.” It was so bad that he simply walked away from the business. Now 79 years old, Hackman makes big bucks doing commercial voiceovers for outfits like Lowe’s.

Runner-up would be Goldie Hawn. The 63-year-old sexy blonde comedienne’who won an Oscar for her first movie, “Cactus Flower,” in 1969’hasn’t made a film since “The Banger Sisters” in 2002.

Goldie’s lack of ambition extends to her life partner, Kurt Russell, who’s only 58. Russell rarely works anymore unless someone comes knocking. He starred in Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof” in 2007, but altogether has less than one credit a year. He and Hawn are simply very well-fixed at this point.

Warren Beatty can also be added to the list. Never a prolific actor, Beatty last appeared on screen in the famous flop, “Town and Country” some eight years ago. The Oscar-winning director (”Reds”) has always been picky and choosy. He passed on playing the title role in “Kill Bill.”

Robert Redford has slowly joined this club, too. Busy with the Sundance Film Festival and other endeavors, Redford did direct and star in “Lions for Lambs” in 2007. Otherwise, the Oscar winner for “Ordinary People” has only made four films this decade.

Redford’s “The Way We Were” co-star Barbra Streisand works even less, at least in film. She hasn’t made one since “The Mirror Has Two Faces” back in the mid-90s. This decade she’s made just one film, “Meet the Fockers.” She may turn up in its sequel, “Little Fockers.” She concentrates instead on her recording career and touring.

There are plenty of others, too, not just Oscar winners but popular faves: Joe Pesci, for example. His first part since “Lethal Weapon 4″ in 1998 was a small one in “The Good Shepherd” (2006). Otherwise, he’s on the golf course.

And a lot of younger actors’in their late 40s, early 50s’have become more selective. Debra Winger, Matthew Modine, Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Helen Hunt, and Jeff Bridges all take their painstaking time making solid career choices.

We needn’t worry though. Scads of veterans are working somewhere all the time, from Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Sally Field and Dustin Hoffman to Clint Eastwood (the ultimate overachiever). Meryl Streep (right up there with him) and Robert DeNiro (the Energizer bunny).

Madonna has been allowed to adopt Malawi child Mercy James by that country’s highest court. This, despite a ruling from a lower court earlier this year that the adoption should not happen.

Earlier this year, the Malawai Human Rights Consultative Committee issued a strong statement against the Madonna-Mercy adoption.

It’s called “Redefining the Boundaries Between Child Adoption and Child Kidnapping.” You can read it http://www.hrccmalawi.org/madonnastatement.pdf

The statement is very specific:

“HRCC has all along, even before the adoption of the first child, David Banda by the
same pop star, been urging the government to speed up on its adoption policy so that
people like Madonna and others cannot use their financial power to override rules and
force the legitimization of child abuse. If this lacuna in policy and law is left unattended
for too long, more celebrities and other families will take our children away under the
guise of intercountry adoption, a development which may create loopholes and be
prone to child trafficking.
It is not only the material needs that matter for a normal upbringing of a child. Children
need to be taken care of within their communities and where their psychosocial needs
are satisfied. Mercy (Chifundo) James is a child who has her extended close family
members alive, and we urge Madonna to assist the child from right here and even
contribute to existing local capacities so that children are taken care of within Malawi.

HRCC shares sentiments by the British Charity Save the Children, which is of the view that the best place for a child is in his or her family in their community and just to remind that this is a position held in Guidelines for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (Malawi Government).”

In other words: Madonna has gotten her way, overturning a previous court decision and going against a country’s Human Rights counsel.

At the same time, the higher court has cited Madonna’s charity to Malawi. But they don’t underscore some very important points. For one, Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, as I’ve reported often, is simply a front for the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles. Raising Malawi is using the Kabbalah Center’s Spirituality for Kids, or SFK, as a curriculum for Malawi orphans.

Second, there is still no official report about the money — said to be $3.7 million — collected from a February 6, 2008 fundraising event held by Raising Malawi, Gucci, and UNICEF. No report has ever been made about the collection or disbursement of these funds. Neither Raising Malawi nor the Gucci Foundation has filed a Form 990 tax report indicating what happened to the money. Maybe the high court of Malawi should be undertaking that investigation itself.

If you were concerned about this, Evan Rachel Wood, the lovely 21-year-old actress, has ended her relationship with Marilyn Manson, the goth singer/performer who is 40.

She told me this last night at the premiere party for Woody Allen‘s ‘Whatever Works.’ Of course the comedy is about Wood dating the vastly older Larry David. In real life, Manson — whom she actually calls ‘Manson,’ by the way — is a mere 19 years Wood’s senior.

This girl is a smart cookie with a big future. She’s also young, and will date a lot of guys. The tabloids can rest easy on this subject. But Wood impressed me as a girl with her head on straight.

The break with Manson, by the way, is fairly acrimonious. He’s not happy. There seems to be name-calling involved.

What’s next, I asked? She’s moving to New York in the fall to begin rehearsals for Julie Taymor’s ‘Spider-Man’ musical on Broadway. Maybe she’ll fall in love with Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego. He still hasn’t been cast.

‘Maybe,’ ERW said. ‘You never know.’

The main thing is, can she sing? In ‘Whatever,’ she has such a convincing Southern accent you’re sure she’s from Georgia. She’s not, just from North Carolina.

‘I can sing,’ she said. ‘You’ll see.’

In the meantime, the ‘Whatever’ premiere’the second for this film’took place at Brooklyn’s famed River Caf’, home of amazing food and the best views of Manhattan. Co-stars Larry David and Patricia Clarkson came over from the screening, but Woody Allen left immediately after sticking his head in.

‘It was too overwhelming for him,’ a publicist said.

He missed Clarkson’s pal, Amy Ryan, pregnant and due to give birth in October, as well as Dana Delany and her sister, Clarkson’s four sisters, comedian Caroline Rhea, Seth Meyers from ‘SNL,’ Brooke Shields, Stanley Tucci, Swoosie Kurtz, and a gaggle of good-looking young people who no one knew and had nothing to do with the movie business per se. They were like props. The New Yorker sponsored the screening.

Here’s the deal on ‘Whatever’: It’s very funny, a real Woody Allen New York movie. I loved it. It’s not politically correct. Get over it. Clarkson and ERW are likely Oscar nominees. Woody should be nominated for the screenplay. I think ‘Whatever’ will be a crowd pleaser. And if it got Evan away from Marilyn Manson, all the better!

P.S. Evan appears in the final two episodes of HBO’s “True Blood.” She plays the Vampire Queen. She has a memorable first scene, which I will leave to others to describe. It involves another woman, and, of course, blood.

Kirsten Dunst must have made all the money she ever needed from the Spider-Man films. Other than “All Good Things.” Peter Parker’s on-screen girlfriend Mary Jane has no new movies set until “Spider-Man 4″ in 2011.

The time off might be good for Dunst, who might find value in attending a Night School for Deluded Actresses with Julia Roberts. At last night’s premiere of Robert Kenner’s “Food Inc.” documentary, Dunst — there to help promote the film — kinda did the opposite. She wouldn’t take pictures on the red carpet, do interviews or speak to the press. She didn’t have much use for the other guests — an A list crowd, to be sure — either. At the dinner following the screening at the French Culinary Institute on lower Broadway, Dunst kept to a small clique and wouldn’t mix with the invited crowd.

Too bad, too, because the one time child screen vampire could have met Regis and Joy Philbin, Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, Ken Auletta and Amanda Urban, Christine Baranski (with gorgeous daughter Isabelle), Sirio Maccione of Le Cirque fame, restaurateur Drew Nieporent, “Grey Gardens” director Albert Maysles, the Institute’s founder Dorothy Hamilton, and many other erudite, delightful dining companions.

Instead, 27-year-old Dunst played the evening as if she were Greta Garbo, and I’m not sure it worked.

And the talk at dinner — prepared by the school’s students and sponsored by Quintessentially — was largely about Kenner’s eye-opening film that details the way food gets to our tables in America. It’s not for the faint of heart. But at the same time, “Food Inc” — getting rave reviews — offers hope: a burgeoning business in organic food that’s coming not just to yuppie city types, but everywhere.

As for Dunst, after a succession of duds including “Wimbledon,” “Elizabethtown,” “Marie Antoinette,” and “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,” she’d better hope “All Good Things” is a good thing, and one that she doesn’t mind promoting.

As for the people Kirsten missed: Regis talked about his two-week stint hosting the prime time 10th anniversary of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire” on ABC starting Aug. 9. Amanda “Binky” Urban, the famed literary agent, said she loved “Next to Normal” on Broadway. It’s about depression, she’s in book publishing, so it made sense. Cindy Adams traded secrets with Baz Bamigboye of the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Christine Baranski told us about her new CBS drama with Chris Noth and Julianna Margulies called “The Good Wife.” Kenneth Cole said he hoped Sharon Stone was coming back to help with more AmFar auctions. Joy Philbin talked to Nick Pileggi about his Dean Martin script written but never made for Marty Scorsese.

Chow, baby!

Today the New York Post’s Keith Kelly reports that Newsweek — struggling to survive — essentially “scrubbed” a piece about MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough so the mag’s editor Jon Meacham could continue to make appearances on his show.

Newsweek and Meacham denied it. The piece was by the mag’s esteemed Johnnie Roberts. Scarborough, it seems, once defended an abortion doc killer back when he was a lawyer and not just a blowhard TV commentator.

Kelly writes today that the Roberts piece was recut to de-emphasize Scarborough’s past. Here’s how the question and answer are presented in the piece:

When you were a young lawyer in Pensacola, Fla., in 1993, you helped defend one of the first murders of an abortion doctor. In the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor shot dead in his church on May 31, do you have any regrets about your role in the Florida case?

I’m an attorney. I represented clients. I did it as a favor to the family. The goal was to stop this young man from trying to defend himself. I had a family [that was] heartbroken. I was called in to help keep the media away from his family, from his wife and young children. Why would I regret that? Why would anyone regret that? I did the judicial system of the state of Florida a favor.

That’s Scarborough’s story and he’s sticking with it — read it here.

But I was only able to find it by searching out Roberts and Scarborough and abortion doctor. The Q&A is cached on the Internet. Otherwise, it’s been completely removed from the Newsweek website. Of course, the site has no search engine. But check it out. What the Newsweek website does have is a link to — drum-roll please — its corporate partner, MSNBC.

I can sympathize with Roberts. The line between corporate ownership of one entity and actual journalism has vanished recently. If the corporate owner doesn’t like it, or there’s a conflict, then the journalism is history.

Ironically, Kelly is merely repeating news of the scandal from the online blog Gawker.com, which reported the story yesterday. (I’m sure Kelly’s original filing had the Gawker credit. Somewhow, it was omitted.) On Gawker, you can see the original Roberts story and how it was changed. Read it here.

But now the entire Roberts piece is missing, unless you Google it. Why is anyone surprised? Scarborough has always been a Fox in sheep — or cheap — clothing, an O’Reilly wannabe who adapted to MSNBC’s attempt to find a niche. Viewer beware.