In this clip from today's Today show, Kathie Lee Gifford relates a call she got from weather anchor Al Roker on the birthday she shares with her husband Frank. (They were born on the same day 23 years apart!) (That means he was sixty-seven when that whore flight attendant thing happened!) But the point is, according to Kathie Lee, Al delivered his gentle ribbing about her husband's advanced age in a highly authentic sounding Chinese accent. Which Kathie somehow found it appropriate to imitate on national TV because as we know Kathie Lee thinks racism is cute!Oh well, you know what I say, a little harmless racism on the part of old people…what does it mean anyway? That she somehow thinks she is innately superior or that people of other cultures are not human? You guys, it is not like she's exploiting children or illegal immigrants or whatever.

• Madonna probably helped John McCain a bit by showing a video of him alongside images of Hitler, Robert Mugabe, starving children and global warming. Obama was depicted as Gandhi and John Lennon. Luckily for Obama this video has not yet been shown in the U.S. [Times]

• A visiting Kim Kardashian was rushed to New York-Presbyterian late last night after she cut her foot on a glass coffee table at her hotel. [TMZ]

Top Chef's Tom Colicchio turns 46 today. Also celebrating: Marquee co-owner Noah Tepperberg is turning 33. Dealmaker (and Bill Clinton golf partner) Vernon Jordan is 73. Artist Andres Serrano is 58. Ben Affleck is 36. Times style editor Trip Gabriel is 53. And producer Linda Ellerbee is 64. Saturday is the big day for Madonna: The material girl will officially be 50. She shares her birthday with Kathie Lee Gifford, who is turning 55, and Steve Carell, who's turning 45. On Sunday, Robert De Niro will be 65, the same day Jorge Posada will be 37, Jonathan Franzen celebrates his 49th, and Sean Penn turns 48.

Though Today's addition of Kathie Lee Gifford to its fourth hour has been controversial, at least one good thing has come of it: the manic host has made the incoherent Ann Curry look like Cronkite. So constant is the ex-Reeger's chatting that even Today regular Sam the Cooking Guy erupted at Gifford, prompting him to burst out with "Can I talk?" after one babbled interruption too many. Now the New York Times has picked up on the Kathie Lee backlash, quoting enough bitter, female viewers to power a Television Without Pity message board:

• Julia Stiles and her boyfriend of two years, Jonathan Cramer, have split up, which may explain why she was so rude to a group of diners at a cafe the other day. [Page Six]

Perhaps you recall that time Today show host Kathie Lee Gifford interrupted "Sam the Cooking Guy" one too many times, prompting the chef to ask, "Can't I talk?" The Times today notes that Gifford has become a "lightning rod for ridicule" in the wake of the video and asks if the incident is part of a broader trend — the trend of Kathie Lee Gifford being THE DEVIL. "Every time that fourth hour comes on, I can literally feel my body temperature rising," a Las Vegas schoolteacher told the paper. "The way she always talks over poor Hoda [Kotb] and the guests and is just constantly talking about herself." Also, there's an "I Hate Kathy [sic] Lee Gifford," Facebook group with all of four members. But NBC likes her because at least people are talking. Lesson: In television, memorable is better than tactful. Which, come to think of it, is exactly the formulation the chef used when he told off Gifford. Click the video icon to watch the incident. [Times]

Chef tells Kathie Lee and Hoda to "pay attention for a minute," Kathie Lee gives him strained "hahaha, I'm going to fucking rip your head off and feed it to Cody and Cassidy" banter in return. [TBT]

Joel McHale, host of E!'s talkie blog The Soup, is a courageous fellow. After making fun of Kathie Lee Gifford on this past Friday's show, he nobly appeared during her Today Show segment to talk shop and further shame the irascible Kathie Lee. Watch the video above to see our hero, dreamy as ever, gently refuse to back down in the face of such unmitigated wickedness. Also, what's being discussed here? Crabs or craps? I can't quite tell. Though, I'm not sure it makes any lick of a difference anyway.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell attacked someone on a plane and was arrested recently. She claims she was reacting to a racial slur that was hurled at her. The term was "gollywog," which is Euro-slang for a kind of black-facey looking doll. And of course, because no topic is safe, Today Show yakkers Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb got to, um, yakking about the term and showed a picture of the doll. Kathie Lee cooed that she thought the big-lipped, nappy-haired old-timey doll was "cute." After a brief pause she sputtered out "but obviously it's racist." Ohhh Kathie Lee. Never stop being you. Clip is above.

Today hosted a very meta discussion this morning about Sue Simmons' WNBC f-bomb and Bill O'Reilly's old Inside Edition eruption, and anchpr Kathie Lee Gifford is extremely sympathetic toward both of the old TV hands and their embarassments. She told co-host Hoda Kotb there's always a chance she'll have her own "FUCK IT! DO IT NOW!" breakdown: "We're having fun, because tomorrow it could be you and I." Or maybe she was thinking of a more mild "what the FUCK are you doing" outburst. After the jump, listen to Gifford talk about how you can barely cuss anyone out in a TV studio any more because of all the satellites and bloggers and so forth.

The perky former co-host with Regis Philbin of Live with Regis and Kathie Lee was born in Paris (tres chic!) in 1953 and raised in Bowie, MD (less chic). Her parents were Joan Cuttell, a singer, and Aaron Epstein, a musician and former U.S. Navy officer. Gifford began singing in high school. She attended Oral Roberts University and studied drama and music.

Kathie Lee Gifford hasn't even been co-hosting The Today Show for a full week, but already she's managed to both turn it into the 700 Club and give us nightmares about her husband Frank Gifford's kinky adulterous past. She wants you to remember, ladies: it's not your fault! You're actually just like Princess Di because lots of sexy women have been cheated on by their husbands. None of this is surprising though, as Kathie Lee's tenure on Live! was marked by constant overshares about her sham marriage, her wretched children (Cody and Cassidy) and her cheesy Wal-Mart faith. Now she's got this faux-View platform to spout it all out again. She's been waiting for years. Praise Jesus!

Can you believe it's been eight years since Mrs. Frank Gifford "left" her post as co-host of Regis & Kathie Lee? (Yes kids, before there was Kelly, there was Kathie Lee.) It seems like just yesterday that the former pageant queen was smothering us with her cackling chatter and inane stories. But that was yesterday; this is Today.

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[Kathie Lee Gifford celebrating the film "Bella" at the Bowery Hotel in New York last night; image via Splash]

[Kathie Lee Gifford at opening night of the Broadway show, The Little Mermaid, Jan 10; image via WENN]