Sara Jane Moore...

who is this elderly woman? And what was she doing at the TODAY show? (watching the American Idols)
She is Sara Jane Moore, who tried to kill President Gerald Ford in 1975.

Sara Jane Moore, the self-styled radical who earned an infamous role in the parlous politics of 1970s America by trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco, was paroled Monday from a Bay Area federal prison after serving more than 30 years, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons said.

Moore, 77, who was serving a life sentence, was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, and it was not immediately known where she went, bureau spokesman Mike Truman said. She will be under supervised parole for at least five years, federal authorities said.

Her attempt on Ford's life came less than three weeks after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a devotee of Charles Manson, mastermind of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles, also tried to kill Ford, pulling out a handgun but failing to get off a shot when he made an appearance in Sacramento.