Live Earth's TV ratings might have been dismal, and the extravaganza took heat for the liberal use of profanity by its performers. But at least the concert series served some purpose: providing comedic fodder for today's "Morning Joe." Host Joe Scarborough and sidekick John Ridley had considerable fun at the expense of Ann Curry, a host of NBC's coverage of the event (see related NB item), whose interview of Al Gore gave new meaning to "touchy-feely."

At about 6:45 A.M. EDT this morning, the MSNBC show rolled a clip from the Curry-Gore interview in which Curry repeatedly grabbed Gore's arm and ended with a manic hand-pump.

View video here.

MORNING JOE PANELIST JOHN RIDLEY: Is she pumping gas out of his arm? Run it again and do an official count . . . we've got to have a Touch-Meter.

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The tape was rolled again, as Joe and John counted the touches: "Touch three there, four, that may be a touch there. 4.5. Six. she's not German, seven, now she goes to the flesh, she's moving down the arm, now look at this, shake, now look at this: pump, pump, pumpity-pump."

As Scarborough burst into laughter, newsreader Mika Brzezinksi, in a fit of feminist solidarity, rode to Curry's defense.

MSNBC'S MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You know, guys, I think you're being a little harsh . . . she was being nice . . . She's a very warm person.

By coincidence, just as I was preparing this item, this morning's "Today" came on, with Ann substituting for Meredith Vieira. Curry stood outdoors next to Matt Lauer, and sure enough, within seconds, Ann couldn't resist the urge to reach out and touch someone. View video.

It was all good fun, but perhaps there is a larger issue here. Could anyone imagine Curry being so chummy with a Republican as conservative as Gore is liberal?

BONUS COVERAGE: COURIC STORY IGNORES 800-POUND GORILLA

You're sure to be hearing about the New York magazine story about Katie Couric's travails at the CBS Evening News. "Morning Joe" took up the matter this morning, with Joe and Mika trotting out the tired theme of how men are applauded for being tough while a woman trying the same tactics is branded a b---ch. But neither "New York" nor "Morning Joe" touched on the bigger story, that of the overall decline of broadcast network news. CBS, NBC and ABC are basically just fighting for scraps. As detailed here, since 1980, total evening-news viewership has declined by about half. Some of it has to do with the multiplication of news outlets in the internet era. But much of the decline is attributable to the predictable liberal line that all the network news shows propound.

As an example of the New York article's tone-deafness, consider its treatment of the fact that "Couric’s personal publicist, Matthew Hiltzik, once handled Senator Hillary Clinton." Instead of analyzing the political implications of Couric aligning herself with a Hillary flack, author Joe Hagan offers nothing but the PC observation that, like Couric, Hillary is "another polarizing female figure breaking into the men’s club."

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.