$2.2 Million for the NSO: Music to Steve Schwarzman's Ears

Cha-ching! The National Symphony Orchestra raised a record $2.2 million at Sunday's season opener, a cool half-mil more than any previous year. No wonder Kennedy Center Chairman Steve Schwarzman looked so pleased.

Then again, Schwarzman has millions of reasons to be happy. His private equity firm, Blackstone Group, went public in June, netting him personally about a $7.5 billion stake in the company and $677 million in cash.

Couldn't help but ask: Does that it make it easier or harder to raise big bucks for Washington culture? Do people expect you to write the biggest check? The usually smooth Schwarzman gave us a you're-asking-about-money? look, then deftly switched the topic from his personal gazillions to his favorite charity: "Fundraising for the Kennedy Center has been better and better. I'm doing the same thing I was always doing."

Since becoming chairman three years ago, Schwarzman and his wife, Christine, made a $10 million six-year pledge to the center. He's also responsible for bringing in "many millions" a year, especially from corporations, said Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser. Bottom line: $70 million a year from donations and endowment.

Like we always say: Nice to have rich friends.

THIS JUST IN . . .

* George and Laura Bush hosted a White House screening Sunday of "The Kite Runner," based on Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel about an Afghan boy and his friendship with a servant's son. Both the president and first lady read the book; guests for the movie, which opens in November, included Hosseini, veep Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Gen. Peter Pace and current and former Afghan ambassadors.

* The Museum of Natural History is returning a lock of hair and leggings of Sitting Bull, the legendary Sioux leader -- artifacts taken from his body by a U.S. Army doctor shortly after his death and given to the Smithsonian in 1896. The objects will go to Ernie LaPointe, one of the chief's four known living great-grandchildren, under the Smithsonian's repatriation initiative. "It's the right thing to do for the museum and for the descendants of Sitting Bull," museum spokesman Randall Kremer said .

HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ?

* Don Rumsfeld and Scooter Libby, enjoying a late lunch and the brisk start-of-fall weather together on the terrace at Morton's on Connecticut Avenue yesterday. Sorry, couldn't hear what they were talking about.

LOVE, ETC.

* Testifying: A former Britney Spears bodyguard, Tony Barretto, who yesterday gave a judge written allegations of "nudity . . . drug use and safety issues" involving the pop star and her two children -- the latest development in the custody battle between Spears and Kevin Federline. Her lawyer denied the claims.

* Still battling: Newspaper owner and conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife, 75, and his estranged second wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife, 60, over who gets custody of yellow lab Beauregard and how to split his $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, a judge ordered him to pay her $725,000 a month in temporary support. (As it happens, almost exactly what Britney earns in a month, according to recent court filings.)

QUOTE

"Will the owner of a very large A-12 OXCART reconnaissance aircraft please report to North [parking] lot. I'm told you're double-parked. Thank you."

-- CIA Director Mike Hayden, kicking off the agency's annual "Family Day" picnic Saturday with a little bit of spook humor. He added that at last year's party, he met a couple of teenagers who learned only for the first time that day where Mom and Dad really worked.