Katie Demands "American Idol" Female Quota, PBS Producer Mocks Reagan

Thursday morning's Today contained a few pop-culture nuggets that revealed liberal media attitudes. As Kathryn Lopez noted on The Corner, in the 7:30 half hour, Katie Couric turned the "American Idol" chat into a peek at her feminist parenting habits (and once again, she plugged her love for Helen Reddy):

Couric: "Oh you're so hip. A lot of people expected Chris [Daughtry] to go all the way, but last night. He got sent packing although, you were so funny. I was playing Helen Reddy on my CD player yesterday."

Lauer: "I thought it was weird. I literally, I walked past her dressing room going out of here yesterday and Helen Reddy blaring on the, on the stereo. She's in the thing like this." [Snaps fingers]

Couric: "And all he did was, he just looked at me. I was not rocking out. He just looked at me like..." [shakes head]....

Couric: "But all I have to say is boy, thank goodness Katherine [McPhee] did not get voted off because it would've been tragic in our house."

Lauer: "Oh, 'cuz [Katie's nine-year-old daughter] Carrie is big on Katherine?"

Couric: "Well she, I, I just think she doesn't want the finals to be two men. She's trained well."

McPhee had muffed her lyrics and underwhelmed judges on Tuesday, so Lopez commented with disdain: "It's ok if you forget a line or sing off-tune because you're a girl. This is what we call fairness in America."

At 9:46 am, MRC's Geoff Dickens also noticed news anchor Natalie Morales was interviewing Marc Brown, the creator of the PBS kids' cartoon "Arthur," the bespectacled aardvark. Typical to the PBS crowd, Brown insisted quality children's television and the education-hating Reagan administration were completely at odds:

Natalie Morales: "But let me ask Marc one more question because you're also celebrating another major milestone because the Emmy Award-winning PBS cartoon Arthur is, is celebrating its 10th year as well. So starting with the new series again on Monday. So how exciting is that for you to see your character come to life on television for these great kids?"

Marc Brown: "I never imagined it would happen. You know PBS came to me back, it was around the time that the Reagan administration declared ketchup as a vegetable for kids and there wasn't a whole lot of..."

Morales, laughing: "I remember that well."

Brown: "...good stuff on TV for kids. There was Sesame Street and my good friend, Fred Rogers, he gave me some advice. I asked him why he started in television and he said he started working with kids in television because he hated it so much. He wanted to make it a little bit better."